American History X

American History X

Race relations movies can be tricky sells, as more than likely they are made with a stoic, obvious political message, or worse, you have someone like Spike Lee who carries such a wrongheaded ideology with him that it winds up being racist itself as he glorifies and romanticizes painfully offensive acts of racial violence (as in his woefully overrated Do The Right Thing, the negative aftereffects of which are still being felt today).  Only one film chose to go out with the idea that there are NO easy answers to the whole racial thing, preferring to go the ambiguous route and let us try to see the racial hatred within ourselves, and thus having a much more profound effect on the viewer than Lee ever could on his best day.  The fact that this was done by little regarded British director Tony Kaye (who tore down the film afterwards due to star Edward Norton redoing everything in the editing room and blowing away his own career as a result) just shows the power of how a screenplay with balls and principles is not afraid to show both white and black characters as being detestable in their own right.  Norton plays Derek Vinyard, a once brilliant student who turns into the leading skinhead in the Venice Beach area after his fireman father is shot dead by black drug dealers when he raced in to put a fire out in their den.  Derek takes to white supremacy with a vengeance, literally becoming a messiah figure to the young men who join up with and take part in acts of vandalism and violence until he goes too far in an attempted hit gone wrong and murders two gangbangers who had come to his house, receiving a three year manslaughter sentence (although one killing was purely in cold blood) before failing to grasp the realities of prison life when he sees his brethren doing business with other minorities to deal drugs inside, and pays dearly for it, before coming out reformed and intending to save himself and his family from further bloodshed.  Norton (a guy usually known for playing subdued, gawky, even awkward lead roles, which is why Pitt got to be his voice of anger in Fight Club) totally transcends anything he’s ever done before or since and transforms himself completely into his character, throwing away his “soft” persona and playing as hard of a badass as has ever been seen in cinema, an amazing accomplishment that was rewarded with a Best Actor Oscar Nomination that he no doubt would have won if not for the fact that the film’s intense subject matter was seen as being too hardcore resulting in his being the only nomination.  As for the rest of the cast, we have Edward Furlong as the younger brother who gets caught up in the skinhead mayhem because of his hero worship of his older sibling, whom Norton sets out to “save” upon his release.  The thing about Furlong was he was a guy who caught a lot of shit after T2 for his acting (even though time has been kind to his John Connor and shown it to be a mature, nuanced performance that was more impressive since he had literally come in off the street at the time), but he went on to give a number of good performances in the 90s before drugs put him on the sidelines and reduced him to a character actor.  This was one of those performances.  Showing both the hateful and sensitive side of his character as he narrates in the form of an essay he’s writing about the influence of his brother on him, Furlong deftly plays the cocky type of kid caught up way over his head when it comes to gang violence.  Then there’s Beverly D’Angelo as the brokenhearted mother who nearly steals the show when she visits her son in prison, refusing to give up on her children or let go even though it is clearly killing her to do so.  Ethan Suplee as the grossly overweight skinhead who assumes the mantle of Norton’s best friend is as repulsive as he is scary.  Fairuza Balk as Norton’s skinhead girlfriend who revels in the hate more than he does is in some ways a throwaway, perfunctory, nothing part, but the actress’ obviously amazing beauty and incredible eyes draw the viewer in whenever she’s onscreen.  Elliot Gould as the somewhat clueless teacher who clumsily tries to romance the mother (a real bad move on his part being Jewish) and even goes so far as to antagonize Norton while having dinner with his family, leading to a hateful verbal attack from Norton that sends him walking out, is another in the line of pathetic schlub parts that were Gould’s bread and butter in his post stardom years, but serves its purpose nonetheless.  There’s also Stacy Keach as the underground white supremacist leader, an older guy with no criminal record but the actual organizer who had used Norton like a puppet to be his ready made, charismatic leader for the white masses and start a race war.  Then we have Avery Brooks as the black principal who works against gang recruitment and also moonlights as a consultant to the police who are working to bring down Keach and his movement.  Presented at first as a “noble” character, the brilliant irony is that Brooks turns out to be almost as manipulative as the Keach character (and proving that what the other supremacists said about him the whole movie is true), finally catching Norton at a weak moment to get him to admit that white power is not what it’s cracked up to be (good), before turning around and promising to help him straighten out his life if he promises to go back to Keach and the others as a returning hero and in essence become his mole (not so good).  Finally, there’s William Russ in a short flashback scene as the late father, where we horrifyingly realize that he too was another father who engaged in the all too common practice of casual “dinner table racism” and whose murder not only spurred but justified Norton’s actions later.  The most astounding thing here is the sheer intensity and single minded grit of Norton’s performance, as not only are white power platitudes made to come out of his mouth, but are said in such a way and with such conviction as to hold legitimate weight (take the Rodney King bit for example) and to almost come across as being reasonable arguments.  The movie was obviously not made to make people end all racism (impossible), but more to make us look within ourselves and ask if taking this shit too far is all that really worth it, whether it be justified on some levels or not.  And the shocking, numb inducing ending, enough to make us scream and cry yet wonder if Norton really will turn his back on the whole thing, sums it up perfectly.  There is no cure for racism, but there is a choice we have between common human decency or giving in to our more baser instincts, and for that, this remains to this day a film that continues to be so important on so many levels…

10/10

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