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American History XRating:
Release Date: 03 February, 2004 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $9.88 You SAVE: $5.10! Cast: Complete Cast (13 total) |
American History X Reviews
Great Movie**Must see!
Edward Norton gave a grammy winning performance in this movie! This film tugged at ALL of my emotions....I was angr, dissapointed, and sad. Everyone should see this movie. Its one of my favorites!
Patronizing and self-indulgent
Upon being subject to various forms of hearsay about this particular piece of Hollywood grime, I finally made the decision to rent it and discover first-hand what the hype was about. In my naivete, I had presumed that this movie would be an honest, unbiased look at urban skinhead subculture or even nationalism as an ideology. What I got instead is a well-crafted social drama masquerading as political satire. After sifting through pages and pages of ogling 5-star reviews of satisfied viewers exonerating this to be "Thought provoking!" "Important!," and of course "Educational!," I began to ask myself "can the Crowd truly be this dense?"
When viewed as a whole, American History X represents a complete and utter failure to in any way "explain" racism and "hatred" (as so many claim). To give a brief plot synopsis, the protagonist becomes "reformed" from his racist ways after the murder of a couple of ghetto-dwelling African-Americans who were attempting to hijack his truck for some ambiguous reason. What are the reasons for his "redemption" you ask? He befriends a fellow inmate (who is black) and gets gang raped by his faux buddies in the shower. Yep that's it; a passionate, tattooed neo-nazi for the majority of his adolescent life and then during his incarceration he snaps right back in the socially acceptable mold of racial egalitarianism like a twig. Just like that. It's all about as believable as a flying cow. He then returns from jail, sore between the legs and educated in Ebonics, ready to make some positive change in the world! It isn't an accident that our protagonist Derek Vinyard (the potential reformee, the poor "brainwashed" kid who is really good at heart) is also portrayed as the only reasonably intelligent one among his skinhead peers.
This film is a superficial self-righteous attempt to marginalize any form of racial loyalty or nationalism by way of a clever "guilty by association" smear-job. It tells us that those who disagree with the self-destructive trends involved in formless egalitarianism and racial pluralism are "confused" and "angry" people who are all in dire need of "reform." In its provincial misunderstanding of genuine nationalism, we are lead to believe that the few remaining pockets of sanity (those who have remained true to immortal principles rather than bowing before modern morality) left in our broken society are nothing but block-headed thugs who's idea of positive action is to beat up a few illegals and then get go out to drunk at rock n' roll concerts.
If one can put previous political conditioning aside and adopt a critical eye, they will discover that almost all of the factual, rational evidence presented in AHX is primarily pro-racialist, while "arguments" against racialism are based almost entirely on emotional rhetoric. Just look at Danny's monologue: "Venice Beach didn't always look like this, it used to be a nice neighborhood..." I suppose we're simply supposed to "ignore" this because it came from an evil Nazi kid. Similar in execution to Schindler's List, this movie uses placid shock tactics and heart-tugging drama expressed in theatrical violence and bigoted language in order to somehow "disprove" racialism. Since the Crowd is easily manipulated (TV and movie producers know this well), when a viewer watches these things and becomes "shocked," they are immediately conditioned in Pavolvian-dog style to associate any form of nationalism or cultural preservation with the same type of violent neuroticism. The goal of these "moral" films is not to discuss ideas, but to appeal to subjective relativism. The People crave action and melodrama, and an intelligent ideological satire simply won't cut the budget. The mountains of profanity and gang violence in American History X will certainly grasp any mall-going teenager's undivided attention.
The film blindly lumps together all forms of generic right-wing ideology into a single package, somehow expecting this to be a genuine and "realistic" portrayal of ideology. Serious nationalists would laugh at the sight of the crucifix hanging on Derek's wall or the American flags regularly imbedded in with all the Nazi imagery. Accordingly we are led to assume that nationalism, neo-nazi skinheads, gung-ho conservatism, and Christian fundamentalism are all basically the same thing. Please. Real nationalists heave at the sight of the bastard son of the Jewish god, and the materialistic, industrialized, environment-destroying, culturally void ode to corporate bureaucracy known as the United States. Real nationalists understand that ethnocultural groups benefit best when working independently in accordance to their own genetic traditions, rather than under some "one-size-fits-all" culture like consumerism and democracy.
However, the single most damning thing about American History X is that it anyone with half a brain will see that it offers not a shred of realistic solutions to racial conflicts. Even if all the evil neo-nazis converted back into passive television-watchers and materialistic law-abiding culture whores (the model citizen), in the end the black and Hispanic gangs are still patrolling the streets murdering, raping, and mugging innocent whites. In one of the introductory scenes we see a white kid being picked on by a group of blacks for no apparent reason. He wasn't a skinhead, he was just taking piss minding his own business, the most painful part being that he just sat there and took it. Wait, I thought the movie was supposed to explain how the Great And Noble Solution To Racism is basically "we should all just learn to get along." If that is indeed the case, why not maintain consistency? Why do I not see the black kids doing their part and following suite? This film apparently can't even follow through with its own propaganda.
American History X is popular because it conveys a popular message and popular easy-to-hate stereotypes of racialist-minded individuals. If a Hollywood flick actually put forth an honest portrait of true nationalists (of which there are many, in many different nations), who are intelligent, educated, polite, focused, have hair, and who aren't obese and consume twice their weight in beer every weekend, there would probably be riots in streets. Popularity comes first, reality comes second. The two are almost never compatible anymore. Take at look at the film's pre-packaged, easy-to-swallow explanation and following solution; "Racism comes from family," and the aforementioned "everyone just needs to shut up and get along, jeez." In order to "prove" this, we see one brief scene nearing the movie's end where Derek and his father are having a dinner conversation about school and affirmative action. His father, simply put, is telling him to intelligently question authority and political indoctrination. It seems like any responsible, caring parent would advise similarly. Of course the whole thing automatically transforms into some huge "racist diatribe" the instant he brings out the all-terrible N-word at the last second. Looks like Derek's "racist training" is equally if not more unbelievable than his "redemption."
In conclusion, American History X, despite its absent-minded and shallow critique of nationalism, earns two stars because it does succeed as a fairly intense and captivating social drama which isn't entirely bloated and predictable. It has some cool action scenes and cinematography, as well as some very convincing acting on the part of Edward Norton. Watch it for its redeeming qualities, not for its "educational" or "enlightening" value.
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