I'm glad I watched "American History X" (1998).

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2014)

It's a good, smart, enjoyable film. I learned from it.
I'd really rather not discuss its social or political messages. One glance at an online discussion of this movie shows that they're divisive and often ugly. (There are even ongoing debates about which gangs or groups should rightly be called "Skinheads," and which are racist.) I'm just not in the mood for controversy this morning. I'd rather just tell you what I thought about AHX as a film.
This movie had a lot of great things going for it, but two things stood out in particular. The first was Edward Norton's tour de force performance. I've liked Norton elsewhere, like "Red Dragon," where he was good. Here, he's phenomenal. He's goddam frightening as Neo-nazi Derek. (He reminded me of Bill Moseley's turn as "Otis Driftwood" in "House of 1,000 Corpses.") Then we see him as a redeemed man. Then, through flashbacks, he's made even more human and three-dimensional, as we see a sensitive young teenager traumatized by the death of his father. Norton was so damned good that I still seem to have trouble believing that the same actor played all three roles. I don't pretend to be a film expert; reviews like this are just a hobby. But I think I know great acting when I see it, and this was great acting.
The second was a really smart script. Again, I learned from this. I always assumed that Neo-Nazis were poorly educated nuts from the fringes of society. As it turns out, they actually do have an ideology, albeit a horrible and misguided one. This movie makes a very smart move in scripting Derek and his younger brother as "brilliant" students, who articulate facts and motivations for doing odious things. Listening to Derek's tirades (including one cringe- inducing scene at a dinner-table) actually sheds light on what motivates the characters' real-life counterparts.
Only two small things occurred to me that made this film a little less perfect than so many others have claimed it to be. First, this movie doesn't even know the meaning of subtlety. Its message and delivery were so heavy handed that it was almost an ABC afterschool special. We even have an overly convenient framing device – Derek's adulating brother, Danny (played wonderfully by Edward Furlong), is asked by an African American history teacher to write a report on Derek's life. The superior film, "Crash" (2004,) for example, handled racism with a hell of a lot more finesse and surprises.
Second, one character arc was way too quick and implausible. After one conversation with his redeemed older brother, Danny also disavows the Neo-nazi movement? After years of propaganda and socialization by the group? I'm not so sure a disturbed, fascist teenager can be deprogrammed so easily. Did anyone else who saw this movie wonder about this as well?
Still, this was a great film. I'd give it a 9 out of 10. One final note – the ending quote by Abraham Lincoln was just beautiful. I'd actually heard only snippets of it sampled by films before – once in "Apocalypse Now" and once in "X2: X-Men United." It's better in its entirety.