There is only one thing that irked me in the film.

Rating: 8/10 (29 September 1999)

I have watched American History X and I loved every second of it. It vividly portrays how blindly cruel humanity can become. The important thing one must keep in mind is that both Derek and Danny had the right to feel bitter the way they felt. Derek learnt his lesson thanks to his mentor ( who is ironically coloured ) in prison. Derek, being the eldest in the family has a deep impact on his younger brother Danny, who is in turn ignorant of his brother's change in opinion. I find that Derek's role in the film is to patch up the aftermath of his initial neo-nazis way of life ... retribution and the killing of the inferior race. The scene where he looks at himself in the mirror seeing the swastica and feeling incapable of erasing it besides being most impressive, hints at his futile fight to erase the effects he had on Danny. One could say, Danny changed in the end. In the film, it is the mentor phrase that predominates ... stop the vengeance and the killing to have them stopped being done to you.
There is only one thing that irked me in the film. It is the fact that Derek's impression on Danny took whole years to be implanted and grow ... how on earth did these be eradicated overnight ?