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Perhaps the highest compliment you can pay to Edward Norton is that his Oscar-nominated performance in
American History X nearly convinces you that there is a shred of logic in the tenets of white supremacy. If that statement doesn't horrify you, it should; Norton is so fully immersed in his role as a neo-Nazi skinhead that his character's eloquent defense of racism is disturbingly persuasive--at least on the surface. Looking lean and mean with a swastika tattoo and a mind full of hate, Derek Vinyard (Norton) has inherited racism from his father, and that learning has been intensified through his service to Cameron (Stacy Keach), a grown-up thug playing tyrant and teacher to a growing band of disenfranchised teens from Venice Beach, California, all hungry for an ideology that fuels their brooding alienation.
The film's basic message--that hate is learned and can be unlearned--is expressed through Derek's kid brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), whose sibling hero-worship increases after Derek is imprisoned (or, in Danny's mind, martyred) for the killing of two black men. Lacking Derek's gift of rebel rhetoric, Danny is easily swayed into the violent, hateful lifestyle that Derek disowns during his thoughtful time in prison. Once released, Derek struggles to save his brother from a violent fate, and American History X partially suffers from a mix of intense emotions, awkward sentiment, and predictably inevitable plotting. And yet British director Tony Kaye (who would later protest against Norton's creative intervention during post-production) manages to juggle these qualities--and a compelling clash of visual styles--to considerable effect. No matter how strained their collaboration may have been, both Kaye and Norton can be proud to have created a film that addresses the issue of racism with dramatically forceful impact. --Jeff Shannon
Young Edward Norton, who seemed to have no body at all in the recent "Rounders"-he faded away from the camera, like a ghost-is here muscled up and swaggering, with a swastika the size of a giant tarantula emblazoned on his chest. He plays a skinhead neo-Nazi in Venice Beach, California, and screenwriter David McKenna has composed some shrewd tirades for him that push only slightly past standard white working-class resentment. Norton gives the young thug an ambiguous erotic allure; he's almost appealing. Everything else in this melodrama, directed and photographed by the British commercial director Tony Kaye, is to be regretted-the alternation between color (the present) and black-and-white (the past); the mopey performance by Edward Furlong as Norton's kid brother, who is haplessly turning into a skinhead himself; and the confused political implications of the story, especially the violent ending, which entirely reverses the direction in which the material has been going. Kaye's work is self-important and garish. The movie was taken away from him during the editing phase. It should have been. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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