American History X is a movie about the culture of hatred that has origins in notions of racial superiority. It is about people who hate. It also attempts to explore the reasons behind the hatred, but most importantly, it is about the damage the hatred does to the world around them.
The protagonist, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), is a bald-shaved, swastika-tattooed avowed neo-Nazi, and the leader of a group of white supremacists in sub-urban Los Angeles. Called the skinheads, the group gets in constant turf wars with black gangs, along with terrorizing helpless minorities at will.
A former literature student, the charismatic and articulate Derek falls under the influence of a local neo-Nazi guru, after the murder of his fireman father by a black-man. The extent of his rage results in the shooting and killing of two black thieves - including the legendary curb stomp scene – earning him a three year prison sentence.
Narrated in two time frames, the movie begins right after Derek's release from prison, with liberal doses of flashback to various stages in Derek's earlier life to provide insights about his current situation. It also attempts to give the viewer an idea why the now-reformed Derek is trying to stop his younger brother Danny from following in his footsteps.
On the same day, Danny's book-report extolling Mein Kampf earns him censure from the Messiah-like school principal, who also taught Derek and frequently visited him in prison. He creates a personalized course for Danny, called American History X, and the first assignment is an essay examining his brother's hate crime.
As Danny writes his paper, the story of Derek's ascent to the leadership of the Klu Klux Klan inspired skinheads unfolds. The director, Tim Kaye, employs the cinematic technique of using black and white scenes to signify past events to put the protagonist's evolutionary tangent in context.
As the director attempts to tackle a subject as vast and insidious as racism, the movie suffers in character development barring that of Derek. American History X falls short of providing a comprehensive overview of racism, hatred, or inner city violence. Instead, it examines ways these elements tear at the fabric of family.
Scant attention is paid to Derek's conversion to right-wing fanaticism and notions of Aryan superiority, other than a dinner table conversion in which Derek's father uses the word 'nigger' while he riles immigrants and the Civil Rights Movement. Derek's association with the local neo-Nazi guru is also glossed over. But Edward Norton's dominating performance and eloquence reinforces the idea that Derek's character was single handedly responsible for the recruitment and conversion of frustrated youth to the pernicious ideology.
The lack of depth in the support characters means that Edward Norton has to carry the film on his shoulders. The young Danny, despite his intelligence and bellicose outlook, is a blank kid who will do whatever Derek does. The rest of the characters appear to be weak stereotypes with point-of-views that level out Derek's extreme outlook.
The mother is a meek character who is both afraid of and for her sons. The academia inclined sister is a liberal who engages in argument with her brother to moderate his point of view. The mother's Jewish boyfriend also echoes the liberal sympathies echoed by the sister, while Derek provides the negation of these ideas using fascist quotes and skewed statistics on illegal immigration and African American crime rates. The static identities are best portrayed in a dinner table scene – wherein the crisp exchange of ideological barb takes a grotesque turn with Derek shoving food in his sister's face and launching a fascist tirade against the Jewish boyfriend.
Danny is impressive in his role, but his overwhelming desire to ape his elder brother turns him into a non character. Derek's rabid girl friend also fades in and out of the movie as she willingly parrots his ideology. Another one of the subversive iconoclast is an overweight exterminator, who finds empowerment with his affiliation with Derek's group.
The script, laced with sociological undertones, fails to add any punch to the movie and tends to become sermon-like as Derek's change of heart takes place.
While serving his sentences, Derek becomes a minority in the black-dominated prison. He joins hands with a white-group, but his notions of supremacy are crushed when he is sodomized by the gang-leader.
Disillusioned by the betrayal and vulnerable, he befriends a black inmate (Guy Torry), who plays a pivotal role in his transformation. The volte-face of the protagonist is not sufficiently explored, it is redeemed by the intelligent interplay of close-up shots with slowed down scenes in monochrome creates the aura of the macabre.
Once out on parole, Derek's transformation is complete, and he is ready to put his intolerant ways behind him. However, he soon realizes that finding such reprieve is much more difficult that first thought. The skinheads had organized similar groups along the West Coast, and expect Derek to lead them onto greater glory. On the other hand, the peers of the black youths that Derek executed three years prior were waiting to exact revenge.
But it is his younger brother Daniel, who is the greatest cause of concern. Seduced by the inflammatory rhetoric of the same neo-Nazi guru and Derek's former peers, he had made staunch enemies of a gang of black youths in his school.
Caught between white supremacists who want to glorify him, black gang members who want to vilify him, his family, and a brother who is blindly following in the same tragic footsteps, Derek finds his predicament precarious at best.
The film emphasizes that actions have consequences, and that attaining redemption isn't as easy as saying "I'm sorry." The price for a change of heart can be, and often is, brutal. The final sequence in the film is shocking not because it's unexpected, but because it illustrates this truth.
