America...

Rating: 10/10 (8 February 2008)

Edward Norton was nominated for an Oscar 10 years ago in 1998 for his performance in 1998 in "American History X." His role as Derek Vinyard, a once-bright kid-turned-charismatic-neo-Nazi skinhead leader is one of the most brilliantly brutal and uncompromising screen performances I've ever seen. After being released from prison, he emerges reformed, determined to leave his old life behind and start fresh, and try to make amends to his broken family. As a 22-year-old black male, I was not the slightest bit offended by "American History X" and the violent racist rhetoric on display here. A lot of what is said and done in this film can be heard from any right-wing conservative loudmouth (i.e., Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage, among many others), so many of the discussions here won't be lost on some viewers. The meat of the story gets underway when Derek's younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) writes a history paper on "Mein Kampf" and is on the verge of expulsion by the school's principal (Avery Brooks) as a result. The principal decides to take Danny under his wing in a remedial history course called, among other things, "American History X." Through Danny's work under the principal, in equal parts back-story and present-story, he explores Derek's transformation into a skinhead, after coming under the influence of a local white supremacist, Cameron Alexander (Stacy Keach), following the murder of their father (though the seeds were planted much earlier, as detailed fairly late in the film), and Derek becomes his protégé, recruiting many lost and impressionable young kids for him. Britisher Tony Kaye directed David McKenna's occasionally flawed script, which guides Norton's Derek Vinyard through a devastating and vicious cycle that is as brilliant as it is chilling and realistic. The transformation he goes through in this film, and his attempts to keep Danny from following in his footsteps is indeed one of the greatest screen performances of all time, even if some issues get left out in the cold, and the script seems deficient in the storytelling at times. But regardless, "American History X," is just one damn-brilliant piece of film-making. The intensity of the performances, especially Edward Norton's, and the material show us that this is film-making at its best. One of the all-time greatest films.
10/10