Edward Norton can become The hulk nobody ever imagined but he did it & rest is history. He did Fight club so on, I love him. American History is a cinema where he over passed his own bench mark as an actor.
He plays Derek Vinyard, a young man draw in to the dark side of his nature after a black man shoots & kills his father. Doing this a carefully shameful character named Cameron Alexander(Stacy Keach), a white racist villain who recruits confused, cynical youths into his white power group.
Then he stands as far away as possible to control them into doing his orders, he never gets into the butchering, he just command orders his confused youth. Derek is also part of this group but after he kills the black guys in prison he realizes his mistake feels guilty & wants to live a new life after he bails out from the jail. But what he created in his home gets influenced his kid brother Danny(Edward Furlong). He idolizes him is so much that he becomes the same Neo Nazi himself, & in the same Neo skin head group. Derek now is in dilemma to save his brother from getting the same fate what he got with the help of high school principal Bob Sweeney(Avery Brooks). But Danny is so much influenced by Cameron that he now believes that his brother who he used to idolize is coward & denies his Derek’s all arguments. How Derek saves his brother & what lies for his fate is the plot.
Directed by Tony Kaye American History x plot looks similar to any other racist based movie but his script editing & the way he narrates the Derek’s story makes it different from all other movies to become a cinema. Shockingly it was Tony’s first flick as director & what a cult cinema he crafted. Tony Kaye & screenwriter David McKenna have created a extremely influential story here, with the way both teamed to create spectacular development coming from the way in which they structured the story itself. The events of "American History X" are not told sequentially it’s, half flashback.
The story goes back & forth between the present, past. With this, the tale continues to grabs concentration as it slowly develops & reveals the proportions of each of its characters, mainly Derek. Tony is not preaching with his style he shows how these guys become what they are with reasons. Tony showed the past in black & white, present in colour which is beauty in itself. It is bold move by Tony & co to show his hero feeling guilt & the climax to tell that racism is not rite thing which other movies failed to do. A lot of the Skinheads gets misused fun out of being hate showing fascists, but Derek takes it very seriously. There are self motives in the group more than senseless hatred involved, Derek has been hurt & shattered by definite elements of society. Given power to with great intellect, he uses it to deform complex issues into injudicious racist opinions. American History X maintains the truthful moral perception while challenging it in a politically mistaken nonetheless honest way.
American History X prefers a tougher, practical way. It avoids the speeches & allows the character’s incidents do the discussion. It depicts minority characters that are, negative, along with quite a few positive ones. American History X tries to confine the cruel demand of hate groups, there are certain scenes that could be get the wrong impression but those scenes are vital necessity of scrip. In the conclusion, despite the fact of violence, the message of American History X I believe can’t be clearer.
I will explain it with few scenes like Derek’s confrontation with his former Nazi mentor(Stacy Keach), Derek’s reaction to his father’s murder in a television interview. It is alarming because it is realistic. Recent example is what happened to Indians in Australia. Even in India itself your neighbour may hate you so much because of your religion, cast. It depicts everywhere in the whole world people want to hide it unless it becomes a huge media issue. That’s what Director wants to tell. Its formation, storytelling method, emotional objective makes it classic. It asks for to relation in an unsophisticated approach, misfortune of brotherhood & give up to a set of powerful, non-verbal representation. Cinematography is excellent the way it shows Derek fight.
Acting is top notch & without any doubt Norton rises above all, when he is skinhead he is brutal & after his changeover he is full of emotions. Danny-Edward act is very good. Other cast is supported well.
Overall Its a classic cinema based on racism with top notch performance, Edward is bloody shine in it.