Should be required viewing

Rating: Null/10 (23 November 1998)

This is the single best film on the connection between youth, the phenomenon of hate and end-of-the-century race relations. Here, there are neither saints nor sinners -- just U.S.
Viewers are forced to weigh attitudes about the main characters, brilliantly portrayed by Edward Norton (the psychopathic choir boy who murdered a pedophile/archbishop in "Primal Fear") and Edward Furlong (the kid from "T2:Terminator II-Battle Across Time"). A host of veteran actors that includes Stacey Keach, Beverly D'Angelo, Elliot Gould and Avery Brooks help shape the tragic tale's prickly edges. What's left is an eyeball-to-eyeball encounter with the results of racial isolation, anger, fear and mistrust.
Be warned. The drama contains two extremely vicious murder scenes. They are far less piercing than the scenes of carnage in "Saving Private Ryan" and the wanton slaughter of the bullet-in-brain incidents of "Schindler's List." Still, even from the most worldly, will utter a gasp, shriek or expletive. Yes. I nearly fell out of my seat, too. At the same time, those inevitable moments of conflict are appropriate to understand the depths into which hatred can drag a human soul.