AMERICAN HISTORY X

• Starring Edward Norton and Edward Furlong
• Directed by Tony Kaye
• Rated R, with strong violence, volatile racism, nudity and profanity; running time 118 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 8

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Nov. 20, 1998) -- The stupidity of racial hatred and the searing cost of violence come under an intense spotlight in American History X, Tony Kaye's painful, passionate saga about the neo-Nazi movement. Edward Norton is electrifying as a virulent racist who learns the error of his ways.

Norton stars as Derek Vinyard a bright but impressionable Californian who turns to the white-supremacy movement after his father, a firefighter, is killed by black drug dealers while he's trying to extinguish a blaze at a crack house. The intelligent, charismatic Derek soon becomes chief lieutenant to a middle-aged neo-Nazi (Stacy Keach) and the leader of a group of Venice Beach skinheads and thugs.

Derek's days as a neo-Nazi are shown in gritty, black-and-white flashbacks, which include a violent raid on a convenience store run by Korean immigrants. Even more horrifying is Derek's murderous attack on two black teenagers who make the mistake of burglarizing his house. Derek surprises them, and as they try to flee, he corners them and coldly, unhesitatingly kills them.

In present-day sequences shot in color, we see that Derek is in prison for the killings and that his less intelligent, more impressionable younger brother, Danny, has taken up the white-supremacy mantle. Danny (Edward Furlong) is called into a school principal's office to explain his positive book review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The principal (Avery Brooks) tells the boy he's going to teach him a separate class -- called American History X -- and his first assignment is to write a paper about his older brother, Derek, who's about to be freed from prison.

Danny is shocked to find that prison has softened his brother's violent, right-wing attitudes. We eventually learn that the older Vinyard was attacked in prison by other skinheads and that he had become friends with a young black man. Those experiences changed Derek, who now sees it as his duty to straighten out his younger brother.

But it may be too late, because the Vinyards have become targets of both the neo-Nazis they now reject and blacks who seek revenge for the boys' earlier actions. The final phase of the film features mounting tension and a foreboding of unavoidable tragedy.

Director Kaye, a highly regarded veteran of British commercials and videos, offers an invigorating, in-your-face film style that perfectly matches the film's volatile subject matter. However, for reasons that aren't at all clear, Kaye has publicly fought New Line Cinema over the final cut of the film, and he tried unsuccessfully to get his name removed from the credits. The final print, though, shows no basis for a dispute -- the movie is as tough, artful and uncompromising as I'd ever want it to be. Kaye should be proud.

Norton also continues to be a revelation. People familiar with his fine supporting roles in Primal Fear and The People vs. Larry Flynt probably won't even recognize him in the film's black-and-white sequences: He's bulked up and his head is shaved. In this daring lead role, Norton delivers a disturbing, heart-felt and ultimately heart-breaking performance.