Norton's best performance, but he flies solo in this one

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2004)

This film is easily the best performance of Ed Norton's great career thusfar. He shows his blue collar side that will work hard to perfect himself for any role.
The problem here is that the rest of the film lags behind his talent. He has little help from the supporting cast, a poor director, and a very soft script in some areas. My biggest problem with the film is that the story was told with flashbacks. We miss out on a great opportunity to grow and change with Derek. The prison scenes are all but pointless, since we already know he comes out reformed and non-violent. Why should we bother watching the middle of the movie? I would have liked this movie a lot more if it was done in linear fashion.
The movie also builds itself on shockingly violent and strong scenes. These are done very well (the rape, the curb incident, the rant by Derek on the news after his father is killed, etc.) However, when we aren't watching one of these scenes, the movie doesn't have much to offer.
The only member of the cast who does well in her role besides Norton is Beverly D'Angelo as the troubled mom. The Nazi influences in Derek and Danny's lives are all clichÃ©d characters that add nothing to the film (Ethan Suplee, Faruiza Balk, Stacey Keach). Ed Furlong didn't sell me on his character being a potentially violent skinhead. Also the attempts at building up the fraternal bond between Derek and Danny failed. It seemed like Norton was carrying Furlong through the whole scene at the diner.
Overall i still gave the movie an 8. It seems like I've bashed it here, but Norton was good enough to wow me, and part of me thinks we had no more character development BECAUSE the director wanted Norton to carry the movie.
Not a bad idea in the least. I was also a fan of the ending, the message was a simple one, but one that I happen to agree with