Uneven film with a strong message on racism.

Rating: 7/10 (11 June 2012)

American History X is a star-studded film whose message about racism hits you at a visceral level, but ultimately seems like an after school television special with its characterizations.
We're in California a few years after the Rodney King riots and incidents. Ed Norton is Derek Vinyard, a tough-talking skinhead and his brother Danny is getting drowned in the maelstrom of hate. Derek's room has posters of Hitler and other white supremacist tokens and he has a swastika tattooed across his back; he's crossed that line and there is no coming back, or so we think...
Sadly uneven, American History X could have been much more. Blacks in the picture are shown as either neutral (playing basketball and hanging out) or criminal or almost subservient. It isn't until Derek is in jail that we say an African American with depth and by that time we would really have liked another one with depth. The prison scenes are some of the best in the movie, with Derek being violated after he didn't pay for protection and his isolation from the other white supremacists finally does him in.
Derek finds redemption in prison and tries to save Danny from the jaws of fellow skinheads but it all unravels for the family when he breaks up with his girlfriend, tells off Stacy Keach (the skinhead leader) and pulls Danny out, not a minute too soon. Seeing them tear down their propaganda and turn over a new leaf is as uplifting as Danny's murder at the end is disheartening. In the end, American History X teaches us that violence begets violence and that while you can change yourself you may never be able to change your environment.
Sadly, the movie could used another half hour or so to show the other side of the coin, a side that was never explored until the prison scenes.