analysis of the movie as a whole -- BEWARE OF SPOILERS

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2003)

I've read many reviews regarding this movie and the majority of them declare that either A. this is the greatest movie of all time and teaches us a very valuable lesson, or B. this movie was highly disturbing and overly vulgar and gory. I found the movie to be neither of those extremes. In the highly anti-Nazi attitude of the American society, I can see how most Americans would fully support this movie which apparently shows the -dangers- of racism, specifically white power ideals. Coming from a city (I grew up in the middle of Los Angeles) with the most diverse of backgrounds, I've learned that every ethnic group is racist to a certain degree, and this movie gives off the impression that neo-Nazi white power itself is a horrible thing, rather than the actual violence that stems from it. Racism is and has always been present everywhere, but it did not necessarily mean that it directly and inevitably causes violence. And even Derek had killed those two black men out of personal offense. Derek was able to come up with highly detailed explanations for his hatred, which were valid regardless of how unreasonable his methods of solving those "problems" were. As a person he does have the right to interpret and judge facts however he chooses. Morally speaking he does not have the right to carry out those judgments in a way that harms others. That point is not made clear because of the incredible stress on the hatred the characters have for others for no other reason that that they are non-white. On Derek's father's note on affirmative action, I couldn't help but think how every group seems to disagree with affirmative action for different reasons, and that being against affirmative action does not necessarily mean that it stems from anti-colored feelings. And even the symbols that the movie tried to slide into the movie were too blatant, again stressing that these people were obsessed with blacks because they were so against them, again just because they were black. There's no reason why a purely black jelly bean would sit right on top center of a full bowl of nothing but white jelly beans. The most moving shots that I've found were those of Derek taking a shower, as the water cascades over his head.
On a different note, I've never heard of a case where a person convicted of manslaughter was sentenced to only three years in prison while the person who had supposedly assaulted a cop was sentenced to six years. And Derek, as smart as he is, is unable to give any specific reason as to why he decided to change his ways and embrace blacks, while he had been able to talk non-stop as to why he was racist. I didn't find this movie to be a good representative of Edward Norton's acting abilities, although Edward Furlong shined and yet disappoingly got very little attention. The actresses who played their mother and sister also gave very brilliant performances. As I had seen this movie after I had heard all the hype, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed, and felt that the movie fed its audience what it wanted rather than proposing a new view.