exceptional drama about racism

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2006)

The narrative.
A passionate emotive tale about racism in society where Norton (Fight Club) is juxtaposed with Furlong (Terminator 2) as brothers who contend with many racial issues in Southern America. The beginning is sensational. The camera comprises a slow moving long shot of a seaside, filmed in black and white to emphasise America's gentleness and emotion. The film continues its brilliance with a disturbing black and white flashback of why Norton ended up in prison and set the agenda to state the purpose of the film, that violence and racism is wrong in every society. The film preaches society values through the characters, especially Norton who is completely against the black stereotypes and wishes to take action to defend himself and his country. His speeches and actions through the film are remarkable and his character is very controversial, to pull this role was sensational and he thoroughly deserved his Oscar nomination for playing a character that is evil, violent and dominant but then sentimental and vulnerable over certain issues. The film is always engaging and extremely powerful. It entices older audiences with powerful moving speeches and violent actions by opinionated characters. Norton and Furlong were both outstanding and deserve praise for playing such emotional characters in this extremely violent film. The ending was remarkable, a shocking tactic by director Kaye who directed this film superbly throughout, but the ending is so powerful I was in tears. It was sensational the way it ended and will leave audiences asking many questions and wondering about their own actions and consequences. Flashbacks were a fantastic technique to emphasise the use of the character's lives and the significance of Norton's change. Always filmed in black and white the flashbacks set emotion and convince audiences of the brutality of the Vinyard lives.
Racism in society.
I'm not accustomed to racism and don't know enough about issues regarding Nazis but I can tell by watching this film that there was and still is something wrong in society. People are entitled to their own opinions about immigrants and other country values but to me it is wrong, there should be equality in the world and this film emphasises how wrong society actually is by encoding hate crimes and a powerful differentiation between different cultural groups.
It is so powerful and meaningful that it simply can't be ignored.
It will take a strong person to cope but it is an essential watch for the powerful racial, parenting, family, school and crime ideologies put forth.