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movie review - American History X

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This movie is ably filmed, alternately in colour film (present) and black-and-white videotape and film (the past). It's also a very straightforward thing, with few diversions or distractions. Distractions wouldn't have worked, anyway; this is the story of a young man who grows up to be a captain in a skin-head army following the shooting death of his fire-fighter father by a black thug. It follows his descent into prison life, and his subsequent evolution to man wanted by the police, his former gang, and the posse of a rival thug he killed along the way.

While an engaging story, this thing falls flat in two critical places. First is Norton's supposed start on his path to neo-nazism where his father essentially talks him into it over dinner when the kid's about 17. I found this very flimsy, because 1) the kid would have been exposed to a parent's views (and we're talking '...it's all a black conspiracy...' long before, 2) I strongly doubt that the kid would have been convinced, given his environment (black classmates, black teachers, etc) 3) It wasn't a very realistic conversation (as if the writer(s) were looking for a short-cut to build up some history without worrying about context?!). The second point is the conversion of the neo-nazi back to a more enlightened route, as it were. The central character turns his back on his skinhead colleagues in prison for doing business with non-white drug dealers, but himself befriends a black man along his route to redemption. Contradictory and ridiculous.

Not recommended.