excellent acting, mature script, wonderful direction

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2006)

I consider American History X to be an extraordinarily good film. It is a social education in itself and an object lesson in human relations gone wrong. The script is so real that you are actually there. All of the acting is so good that one tends to believe the actors' value system are reflected in their lines, although this could not be so because if they believed what they are saying they could not cooperate with each other. All of this is paced and timed by marvelously direction.
Although the theme and script are specifically American they portray and expound a kind of problem which is perhaps the most universal human failing, i.e. suspicion and fear of difference and of otherness. Also a fearful adherence to the pseudo-safety of the status quo no matter what the expense to the other. The film elegantly and brutally demonstrates that the safety of uniformity and bigotry is illusory and ultimately destructive