American History X (Reviewed on Nov. 22/98)
Starring Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Stacy Keach, Avery Brooks, Fairuza Balk, Beverly D'Angelo
It's been two short years since Edward Norton made his his movie debut in "Primal Fear". Despite only appearing in a handful of movies since then, he has proven himself to be one of the best young actors working today. He's got a range that is not often seen in actors these days. In many ways, he's reminiscent of Sean Penn. They both instantly draw an audience in with their charisma, they both have the ability to disappear in their roles, and most importantly, they are not afraid to tackle difficult material.
"American History X" stars Norton as a young skinhead who is living a life he thinks is just. A life filled with hatred and crime. It all changes, though, when he is arrested for murder and sent to prison for three years. He comes out a changed man, and attempted to get his family out of that life permanently, but discovers his younger brother (Furlong) has taken up the cause.
The movie is told in black and white, and colour. Tony Kaye, the director, lays the symbolism on pretty thick. The black and white is reserved for the flashbacks, which show Norton in his pre-enlightenment days. The lack of colour is supposed to indicate, I guess, that he's not really living like that. It's not until he realizes that racism is wrong, that the colours of the world open up to him. Either that, or it was just a tool to clarify for the audience what was a flashback and what was the present.
The problem with the movie is that it feels more like a series of vignettes, tied together by a recurring character. There's no real sense of plot here. Scenes don't logically lead into one another. Because of this, there's no real flow to the film, which makes it hard for the viewer to really get into it.
My main problem with the film, though, is a scene that comes late in the picture. It's a flashback to Norton's pre-skinhead days. We see him telling his father, who was killed a few weeks later, about the book he is reading, which happens to be about a black character. The way his father reacts to this shows him to be a definite racist. But the part I didn't like, is the way the Norton character so easily accepted what his father said. The way the scene was done, it appeared that these were thoughts Norton had never had. I found it quite hard to believe that an intelligent kid like that would *instantly* accept these racist theories provided by his father, without questioning it at all. The way the scene plays, it feels like it wasn't even part of the original script. It's like some executives decided that they wanted a definite rationale for why Norton would get involved with the skinheads. Well, it doesn't work.
"American History X" is worth the price of admission simply to witness Norton's incredible performance. I have no doubt, that come Oscar time, he'll be nominated. It's the best performance of his career, and for that reason alone, the film is worth seeing.
**1/2 out of ****
-- David Nusair dnusair@chat.carleton.ca Come visit my "Reel Film Reviews" site! "http://chat.carleton.ca/~dnusair"
"The most annoying questions are the hypothetical, like, `what would have happened if you had quit after Siamese Dream?' Well, what would have happened? Probably, we all would have been playing samba somewhere." -Billy Corgan
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