Review of American History X (1998) by Ahmedaiman9999 — 23 Aug 2018

American History X has one of the most compelling stories I've seen in movies in a while. It's a gut-wrenching, and heartbreaking story. But Tony Kaye's powerful and challenging direction is what made the movie so provocative.

The movie also proves that Edward Norton has a huge talent that, unfortunately, has been wasted. Norton delivered the performance of his career in this movie. A performance that elevated the entire movie. While Derek Vinyard, Norton's character, has the most powerful lines in the movie, they wouldn't have been as powerful as they are without Edward Norton's staggering delivering.

Also, Edward Norton's performance may be the only thing that remained sharp and solid throughout the whole movie. Because aside from Norton's riveting and smart monologues, the dialogue in this movie, especially at the first two acts, is so weak and often cheesy! The things got better at the last act but at that time I was wondering why the dialogue wasn't that good most of the movie. It's really baffling because the movie needed badly to have a decent and strong dialogue from its beginning, considering its subject matter. The dialogue often was too on the nose and preachy while it should have served its already gripping story. That also made some scenes in the movie feel so awkward and heavy-handed.

The dialogue isn't the only, or the biggest issue I've with American History X. As I think that everything related to the Neo Nazi gang is completely underdeveloped. All the characters of the members of this gang are one-dimensional characters. They are totally undeveloped and bland, and almost have no depth. Which is a shame because they play a pivotal part in the story. They are part of the main plot, so to speak.

Besides that balancing between two contradictory aspects of the story, Tony Kaye with his mixture of black & white history contrasting with colorful reality is magic to absorb and shows this film up to be what it is. Smoothly moving camera in the scenes in Black and White that are set in the past to convey an unsettling feeling, and bleak and restrained colored scenes to match the dystopian-like present.

American History X also has one of the most shocking endings ever. But its ambiguity is what makes it more dreadful.