AMERICAN HISTORY X (43)

Directed by: Tony Kaye

Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Stacy Keach, Fairuza Balk

The Pitch: A teenage neo-Nazi sees the error of his ways, and tries to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps.

Theo Sez: Crude, superficial, kind of fun ; incredible to think director Kaye kicked up such a fuss over this glorified music-video. Norton is, as ever, expert and, as ever, a little over-fluent, keeping animal aggression at arm's-length - always on top of his hatred, never looking like he might lose control. The best scene, a dinner-table conversation that degenerates into racist name-calling, has him trading sound-bites with Jewish liberal Elliott Gould (black Americans are their own worst enemies ; ah, but social inequality makes them that way), yet the film isn't sharp enough to sense how the impotent equanimity of 'civilised debate' is exactly what might make an otherwise intelligent person lash out in frustration : the way it's played, Norton simply gets carried away, letting the 'civilised' mask drop as he feels the conversation slipping away from him - making for a certain crude tension (when will he show his true colours?) but losing a psychological layer (it might've worked better had he prevailed in the argument, and Gould still smiled and politely agreed to disagree). Elsewhere hysteria rules, characters are reduced to splashy indicators, mouths scream in ECU, American flags flutter, choirs emote on the soundtrack and slo-mo is (apparently) a thrilling and original cinematic device ; but at least it's heartening to know that the most hard-bitten neo-Nazi can be redeemed via regular sessions with a smart-mouth Chris Tucker wannabe. They don't teach you that in social-worker school.