Directed by: Tony Kaye
Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Stacy Keach, Ethan Suplee, Beverly D'Angelo, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks
American History X was made in 1998 and contains ideas which are more relevant today than ever. Immigration is now a hot-button issue and we see and hear stories of immigrant children separated from their parents. No matter what your view is on illegal (or legal) immigration and how it should be handled, separating kids from parents doesn't sound like the way to go about dealing with the issue. Is there even an issue? Or just a rabble-rousing way to gain electoral support?
In American History X, a white man from Venice, CA named Derek (Norton) is seduced into the world of neo-Nazism and the skinhead culture. He not only joins, he rises in the ranks and becomes a powerful spokesperson spewing hateful rhetoric to troubled, lonely, and insecure teens looking for someone to blame for their troubles. How did Derek get this way? Flashbacks suggest a father who instilled bigotry into his children, but to see the extremes to which Derek takes his beliefs suggests something darker and bleaker. Not just content to make speeches, Derek leads his followers in violent attacks against minorities. One night when vandals were attempting to steal his car, Derek kills a black man with a curb stomp and is sentenced to prison. The wild look in his eyes displays his unbridled hatred.
That changes in prison, when Derek discovers tacit cooperation between the white supremacist and minority factions. Derek doesn't understand nor care that their alliance is for monetary or practical benefit. He challenges the white supremacists and the minorities and is raped in the shower for his troubles. Now a disillusioned loner, Derek is befriended on his work detail in the laundry room by a black teen who is able to help steer Derek's beliefs into more positive views of others.
Assisting in Derek's transformation is Sweeney (Brooks), a teacher who taught Derek in high school and is now teaching Derek's younger brother Danny (Furlong), who is dangerously emulating his older brother. Derek is released from prison attempting to save Danny from his fate and from the grip of white supremacy. These supply some of the most powerful moments in American History X, which scarily manufactures a nightmarish world of violence, hatred, and maybe redemption if it can be allowed. Or are Derek and Danny in too deep to break free?
Edward Norton (in an Oscar-nominated performance) provides us with a protagonist who convincingly and powerfully transforms from hate monger to a wiser version of himself thanks to his experiences in prison. Sweeney asks the most pertinent question which forever alters Derek's attitude, "Has anything you've done made your life better?" Looking around his prison surroundings, Derek knows the answer and in a scene of intense power, he finally understands where his hatred has landed him. But, breaking Danny free of this life is a hurdle, since he is clearly under the sway of Cameron (Keach), the head of the local skinhead chapter who recruited Derek and eagerly tells him how the infant internet will help unite the cause of racism and violence.
American History X can really only end one way, and it chronicles an almost inevitable path for Danny which he can never truly escape from because he sets the wheels in motion early on. Even as Derek tells him of his prison story, and Danny undergoes a change of heart, their fates are sealed. It is telling as Derek's last words in the movie are, "What have I done?" It is a question which will haunt him the rest of his days and provides a terrifying conclusion. American History X's post-production war between director Kaye and Norton is well documented, but even with that, the movie gives us a dark look at a horrifying underbelly of society which in 2018 now feels empowered and even emboldened by rhetoric from a president who appealed to the basest instincts of voters in a cheap, cynical, transparent attempt to win votes. The saddest part is that it worked.
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