Originally Posted by
JapanAir21
Watched American History X for the first time last night. Shocked I hadn't seen it before, as I'm quite a fan of Ed Norton. I loved the style of the film. It was a hell of a ride to see Norton go through his different stages in the film. Kind of just goes to show you how much racism is still alive today, even in states you think might be a little further along with those kind of issues. I thought it has aged gracefully, it seems like one of those timeless films.
I found it intriguing how different this diverged from a show like Oz in terms of prison-life. Oz pretty much stuck to their own fractions. The blacks, black-muslims, the Italians, the skinheads, etc. I liked how Ed Norton hated that races intermingled, and that was his downfall. The shower scene was quite brutal, but I suppose as any rape scene is. Maybe it's just a fear of mine to see anyone I know getting abused like that. And then also his savior was a person of color, which makes sense story-telling wise, but it really worked. I don't know that actor, but the dialogue between Norton and him was awesome, especially the Lakers/Celtics stuff.
. It was quite fun to see how basketball was woven into the story too, I wasn't expecting that. Those parts a bit dated, but I still enjoyed it.
The skinhead gang was quite scary in their portrayal, especially during the raid of that grocery store. Looking at it now, it's not all that graphic at all, but it hurt emotionally. It was hard to watch. All the scenes with those idiots being overtly racist was always unsettling.
I liked how the night that Norton's character killed off the black men was slowly revealed to us slowly, as well as their father-figure. It was quite graphic even though they didn't show anything. It got to be quite sadistic towards the end of the revealing scene when he was arrested.
The entire time I was wondering, one of them was going to die, and I was going back and forth at who it was going to be. At first I thought it was going to be the Furlong's character, then I was like wait, no, gotta be Norton. Nope, it's going to be Furlong. Then I was convinced that it was going to be Norton. Then the gut-shot of it being Furlong, it hurt. Loved the way it was shot. It's strange how much I liked Furlong's early stuff, but after that I couldn't stand him. Once he became an adult I guess, I just wasn't interested. Loved him in T2, Pet Sematary 2, Brainscan, and then now in American History X.
I was shocked to see that the film is basically disowned by the director, as he had nothing to do with the final cut. Regardless, I loved the style with the switch between black-and-white and color, and then the transformation of Norton from your typical skinhead to a man who just wants to protect his family.
It's hard to say what else could have been added to make this a better film, but I would've liked to see there be maybe another half-hour added to the film, with some more stuff between the principal and the brothers. They had great on-screen chemistry.
9.5/10, 14 years too late.
