Really Very Well Done

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2010)

I just saw this film on DVD. I thought it was very well done.
I thought Ed Norton was very well cast in this role, and delivered superbly. In fact, he was a lot more convincing as a white racist then he was the reformed and much milder man who came out of prison. Overall, I thought the acting was very well done with an emphasis on his performance.
I liked very much that the script confronted some realities. The speech he gives outside the grocery was correct when seen from that perspective, i.e., he didn't have to make things up to rile up his cohorts, he just had to speak the truth as it presents itself to that demographic: lower white middle class. Mouthing platitudes about how bad racism is a useless endeavor, if we ignore the factors that have so many whites scared and responding in racist fashion in lieu of any other way to express what they see as their grievances. The script forces us to confront the reality that it's not just bigotry that is the problem, but the underlying forces.
And I think this is why Danny dies in end. There is no happy ending to this story, because even if Derek is reformed, there's another racist a- borning, either black or white, and willing to use violence to address his problems. This isn't really a happy film, and I don't think anyone can walk away from it feeling the better for it. But I do think we walk away having learned from it, and that, indeed, is what art is about.