Powerful depiction of racism

Rating: 9/10 (8 October 2002)

Tony Kaye's extremely impressive feature film directorial debut AMERICAN HISTORY X (1998) is a film one necessarily wouldn't expect to come from today's Hollywood too often. A strong and harrowing depiction of racism and rotten minds who feed it and keep it alive in "civilized" society. The film is written by David McKenna who has since written films like Blow.
Edward Norton and Edward Furlong play brothers in AMERICAN HISTORY X, a brothers who have been taught to support racism since they were just teenagers. Then their father gets killed in the line of duty and Derek, the older (Norton), decides it was all because of blacks and other non-white American people who live in their neighbourhood as well as in the whole America, too. He turns into real devil in the form of human being and starts a gang in their neighbourhood to destroy all the "parasites, immigrants.." and becomes hugely popular skinhead leader who is hugely admired by Danny, the younger brother (Furlong). Then a horrific act of violence takes place and things start to take new directions..
Rarely have I seen a film about racism made this restrainedly but still extremely harrowingly and memorably. The actors are of course great and Oscar worthy, but the screenplay is the most important thing. There's no humor or lightening elements and the ending is definitely not a traditionally happy and "it was just a movie" like. The ending is there to strike the viewers even more effectively and force us think and realize. Especially the last speech is important and thickens it all.

Also the acts and "opinions" of the skinheads are written with care and the film doesn't moralize anything which is great. The skinheads really believe in their thing that all other than non-white/American citizens need to be killed, hurt or otherwise destroyed and removed. When I listen to them I cannot but admire the work of the scriptwriter; even the real skinheads should stop and think do they really want to look so pathetic and ridiculous because they ARE realistically depicted in this film.
The music is powerful and sad and makes the images even more powerful and stunning. Kaye is also a cinematographer in this film and it shows as he captures some nice landscapes and uses B&W photography very effectively. There are many extreme close ups of character heads and face expressions which really show how serious all the characters, racists and non-racists, are and I cannot find single one irritating or unnecessary role or actor in this film. The ending is unexpected and very sad. The violence in the ending is also very fierce but it is pretty much symbolic and makes the man who grabs the gun really see what has now been done by him and why. The film includes some very strong scenes of violence but they are never even distantly exploitative or gratuitous but realistic and thus so painful to watch. This is the kind of film which can make viewer turn the eyes off the screen at some points and that is a sign that the message has been delivered and will stay haunting inside the viewer mind and that is also one thing from which a remarkably powerful movie can be recognized.
Tony Kaye's film is easily among the greatest and most important Hollywood films of the 1990's. It can be seen universally and won't lose its power too easily during years and as long as this kind of wickedness takes place in the world everyday, these films remain as important as when they were released and should also be seen by many people who don't necessarily understand how serious these things really are not only in this film but in real world, too. Films like this are for everybody and concern everybody. 9/10