Thoughts on "American History X"

From Wikipedia:

The film tells the story of two brothers, Derek Vinyard (Norton) and Daniel "Danny" Vinyard (Furlong) of Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California. Both are intelligent and charismatic students. Their father, a firefighter, is murdered by a black drug dealer while trying to extinguish a fire in a South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, and Derek is drawn into the neo-Nazi movement. Derek brutally kills two black gang members whom he catches in the act of breaking into the truck left to him by his father, and is sentenced to three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. The story shows how Danny is influenced by his older brother's actions and ideology and how Derek, now radically changed by his experience in incarceration, which includes violent rape by white neo-nazi inmates (because of a friendly relationship with a black inmate)*, tries to prevent his brother from going down the same path as he did.

Easily the most powerful film I have watched this year. The last film which made me this morose would have been Incendies. American History X has an overarching message about racism - not just about neo-nazis or white power or black gangs or youth unemployment or hopeless governments or what is constitutional. At the end (spoilers!), Danny is shot to death the day after Derek is released from prison, as revenge for the two men Derek murdered three years ago. Derek leaves prison a changed man - completely changed and already moved on from his days of being "pissed off" - but his old "enemies" cannot accept it, as do the members of the neo-Nazi movement.

And so Danny's death appears like an ambiguous mark on a neatly finished typed script - without "the end". The violence and retribution goes on and on etc. I wonder if the movie was just another 5 minutes longer - would it show Danny being lowered into the ground? Who would be at that funeral? Derek might not rejoin the movement but he might ignore Sweeney and move out of that area, cut off all ties to Venice Beach.

* Wikipedia is inaccurate. Derek is raped because he chooses to disassociate himself with the neo-Nazis in prison, not because of his relationship with the black inmate. His friendship with black inmate is private and happens in totally different scenes to the scenes in the canteen. Derek's friendship is the one thing that saves his life during the three year prison sentence. 

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It's odd to think that this violence still exists in the first world, especially when I have grown up in Hong Kong and London, gone to decent schools and benefited from the British constitution and the British education system. I guess I became interested in this after I saw a neo-Nazi on the bus last week. He had a Nazi cross tattooed on the nape of his neck and was sitting next to an old lady near the front, reading a dog-eared copy of "War is Hell" - no idea who it was authored by. My point is that it's probably closer to home that what people normally think. It took decades to build up the laws of the constitution, to have a liberal tradition in the UK and I take it for granted every day.

And Edward Norton has nice body. lol.