Almost flawless

Rating: 9/10 (15 June 2006)

This film is a gem and a rather intelligent and poignant story. Extremely gripping and almost has educational value: I would not object to schools showing this to kids in the mid-teens.
But I have three complaints (the last two cost it one star).
First, Ed Norton being overlooked for the Oscar for his performance in this film simply goes to show you what a "wank" the Oscars really is. I'm sure that Roberto Benigni's performance in "life is beautiful" would have been terrific, but I'm prepared to hand the Oscar to Norton without even seeing Life is Beautiful for one simple reason: transformation. Acting a character who's personality and eccentricities are constant (eg.. Forrest Gump) is not nearly as difficult as playing a character who starts out as one type of person and transforms gradually to another throughout the film. Norton performs this to a tee and is, to date, the most under-rated actor to grace Hollywood - (did anyone else see his top-notch performance in the People vs Larry Flynt?) Second, there is an unnecessary addition to the story. At the end of the film, Norton walks his brother, Danny, to school and they stop off at a diner. Then the school principle and another guy rolls in and tells Norton that some of his old neo-Nazis mates were beaten up last night and he needs to re-infiltrate the group. Norton was protesting saying that his old "friends" are probably looking to do him in. I didn't really understand how this fitted into the story. What exactly were they trying to achieve with this extra piece of story that seemed somewhat out of place or superfluous to the film? All I can think is that they were re-iterating the fact that Norton won't so easily walk away from his old life, but this still seems unnecessary to me.
Third, I think the film was just a bit too peachy pie in some respects. From the moment that he starts folding sheets in jail with the likable and funny black guy, you know that somehow these two are going to strike up a friendship and this will play a pivotol roll in helping Norton to "see the light" and turn his life around. But the problem is that everything just happened too perfectly. First, he is raped by his neo-nazi friends for dissin' them and playing basketball with black guys. Just didn't seem to be credible in a way, but then again, i've never been in prison and shared a cell with Ben Dover and Bob Downe. Nonetheless, the fact that the neo-nazi's raped him instead of another "group" of inmates makes his ultimate rejection of neo-nazi ideology all the more.... "perfect." I'm not a neo-nazi advocate by the way. But what about this: after he diss's the neo-Nazis, they no longer protect him and in turn, he is beaten and raped by some random guy. See that is credible! But the writers desperately wanted him to be raped "by his own" so that his rejection of them and his transition to being a "good and accepting" person is peachy pie perfect.
I also found that the shooting of Danny at the end of the film was partly an attempt to ensure that the film doesn't have too much of a peachy pie perfect ending. As a result, I felt like there was something too deliberate about it and come to think of it, I think that the scene in the diner with Norton (as I mentioned above) was probably a distraction, so that we were more surprised by the fact that Danny was shot only a few minutes later. Even if I'm wrong, it seemed a bit too contrived and cost it a star.
Otherwise, brilliant film