AMERICAN HISTORY X (1998)
Rating: 3 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Tony Kaye
Written by: David McKenna
Ingredients: neo-Nazi, redemption, legacy, family
Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong
Synopsis: When Venice Beach high school student Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong) becomes drawn to the neo-Nazi movement, the principal puts Danny in a personal tutoring program whereby he must write about the life his older brother Derek (Edward Norton), whom he idolizes. Through Danny's eyes, AMERICAN HISTORY X tells the tale of how wayward brother Derek became involved with the neo-Nazi movement, was sentenced to prison for a shooting, served time, and faced the legacy of his mistakes.
Opinion: AMERICAN HISTORY X is a non-formula movie that approaches neo-Nazism from a non-stereotypical view. It shows how seemingly average teens with empty lives might get caught up in a racist social movement perpetrated by demagogues with political ambitions. Aside from redemption, another central theme of AMERICAN HISTORY X is the concept of legacy. A man might serve time in prison, but for both victims and aggressors, the consequences of former actions continue. Although the pace of the film somewhat uneven at times, and there is perhaps one unnecessary scene in the last third of the movie, AMERICAN HISTORY X is an excellent family drama that is well photographed and poignant as well as superbly acted.
Reviewed by David Sunga November 21, 1998
Copyright © 1998 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews