Racism hitting you in the gut

Rating: 9/10 (12 August 2002)

I love this movie. I'm not going to declare it "perfect" or one of the best films of all time, but it's nevertheless truly great. About the first 20 minutes are pretty bad...the story is set up in a clunky manner reminiscent of after-school specials. The all-wise principal is also artificial, but he is a minor enough character that he doesn't detract too much from the film. I also had a problem with the music in a couple of places, particularly on the basketball court. I recognize that the usual term is "dramatic score," but this score heaped the drama on way too early in some places. Like the movie itself, however, the music recovers and begins to simply fit.
Ed Norton is the one who made this movie brilliant. Sometimes when one actor dominates the screen so much the other portions of the movie suffer (personally, I'm thinking of Washington vs. the Canadians in "Hurricane"), but in this case Furlong was compelling enough to avoid this problem, as one of the two was almost always on the screen. The Eds are great, and Norton's nomination was well deserved.
****SKIP NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID SPOILERS****
The most common complaint about this film seems to be that the character's turnaround was not believable, that it was "overnight." I couldn't disagree more. It was not overnight, but over the 1095 nights of his sentence. Derek had a lot of time to think, and that's what undercut his ideology. His Nazi brethren were ignoring the tenets of his belief system, exposing them for what they were--people latching on to an idea for identity, not for the merits of the idea. As a thinking individual and former honors student, Derek needed to justify his feelings of hatred with logic. Cameron's teachings fit the bill nicely. Then he realized that people didn't care about the ideology so much as the image. Shortly after that his Nazi friends rape him. As he lays unconcious on the shower room floor, the word that came to my mind was "wreck." Derek was completely wrecked and destroyed. In his fragile state, who comes to visit him? A black man. He initially questions why his former teacher bothered to come, but as the shivering and tearful mass that he is at that point, the friend is sorely needed. Does it all feel slightly contrived? The emotional content of the sequence prevents the viewer from feeling the artificiality, but a cerebral examination of the events ends with an answer of "yes." The teacher is too wise and saintly not to be questioned. Disbelief of the teacher's character suspended, is the transformation believable? Yes.
American History X doesn't just tell you that hate is bad. It may overtly state that "hate is baggage," but it's a message of summary, not instruction. The movie lets those who watch it truly FEEL that hatred causes pain, and does it as well as I have ever seen it done. Ordinarily a beginning as poor as this movie's first 20 minutes would greatly lower my opinion of the remainder, but not here. The rest of the movie is just that good. 9/10