Overrated

Rating: 6/10 (5 March 2006)

I'm truly stunned at the rave reviews this one has received. It's well acted, and contains some powerful scenes, but there is a huge, central flaw in it: Derek's conversions are simply not believable. One dinnertime conversation with his father sets him down the road from intelligent, easygoing bookworm to belligerent tattooed Nazi skinhead? This just wasn't credible. His conversion FROM fascism, while much more thoroughly explored, is also unconvincing - he just seems to have abandoned his (ostensibly deeply held) convictions all too easily and completely. And frankly I saw the ending coming a mile away! The film seems to have been made with the idea of shell-shocking viewers by its scenes of extreme hatred, and judging by the other user comments here it clearly succeeded in that. But strip that away and there just isn't much to it.