Quite simply, a masterpiece!

Rating: 9/10 (21 July 2008)

Before watching this I was thinking of how I thought the movie would be, my imagination didn't even give me a hint of the power this movie has.
In this absolute masterpiece Edward Norton plays Derek, a violent yet intelligent skin head who is led to question his beliefs and what he has based his whole life on. Edward Norton plays a very powerful neo-nazi leader, he is praised and respected by all among him. Until one night he murdered two black people who were trying to steal his car. Derek was then sentenced to three years imprisonment, throughout his time he came to realise how wrong he was and that none of his past neo-nazi racist beliefs had helped him actually do anything for him as a person. Throughout this time in the movie you genuenly feel his struggle through prison, which is shown through the intensity of Norton's acting. He then is not helped by people of of his flag and belief, but actually by a black man, the very type of person he had been hating and fighting against for his entire life, and now he owes his life to this man for helping through the most meaningful and impacting experience of his life. This really puts his life in to perspective as Derek realise how wrong he once was, he cannot grasp the fact that he fell for all of it in the first place.
After this miraculous change throughout his sentence in prison, he reforms as a person and then is set out to help influence his younger brother Danny, played by Danny Furlong who hadn't ever been seen in a big production like this, Furlong gives us true and meaningful performance of a younger brother trying to follow in the footsteps of his older brother's self. During this heart stoppingly powerful film we see Edward Norton master not one character but two. One of his old enraged neo-nazi self and the other of his reformed and regained self, whom had realised his mistakes in his past violent and tragic life and was trying to save not only himself but his family! Norton plays a totally believable character, going from a brutal killer to a intelligent and intellectual brother.
Even though this movie contains a constant theme of violence and racism, it is not trying to judge either the black or white people, it is mearly just trying to focus on the point that it's people's violent and blunt actions which cause this racial divide. This is what this film is aimed to show and does extremely well, being the most powerful, touching, and meaningful movie I have ever seen!