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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Music Everywhere
Monday 04 June @ 11:00:41 |
 OVERLOOKED GEM: “American History X”
by DWIGHT HOBBES
There is no way on God’s green earth “American History X” will ever get the attention it deserves as a contemporary classic. Our society is too much founded on sheer, enduring cowardice and just doesn’t have the stomach for such straightforward fare. Every patronizing, condescending do-gooder who simply finds it bad taste to come right out and say, “Nigger!” should be forced to sit and watch “American History X” repeatedly, without so much as a bathroom break. Particularly pseudo-liberals, who keep their racism in the closet, pretending to respect everyone.
What we have here is the journey of an L.A. skinhead who begins as a blindly unreasoning bigot and becomes a painfully awakened human being. David McKenna’s brilliant script gives us Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton getting a chance to sink his teeth into a meaty role), an angry young man who believes he has damned good reason to be mad at the whole world, especially anyone in it who’s either not white or is Jewish. And, frankly, you have very little problem understanding how he got that way. And, when his racist rage turns him into someone who kills with a seething vengeance, you don’t exactly sympathize-–but again, you sure do understand. And, albeit grudgingly, respect that, as he is willing to pay the price for his conviction. There is no whining when he’s sent to prison: Derek did what he believed in and steps up, taking the consequence without compunction. Which is when he finds out, to his fearful, heartsick confusion, that the hate on which he has built his life is less a crusade than it is a crutch and a self-defeating delusion. From there, this film follows an unflinching vision that is not for the cowardly.
Co-star Edward Furlong (as kid brother Danny) and the rest of the cast are excellent. Indeed, it’s a welcome opportunity to see Avery Brooks-–remember him from the late Robert Urich’s television series “Spenser: For Hire” as the mysterious Hawk and as stalwart stoic Capt. Benjamin Cisco in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?” –-some beautifully effective character work. He plays the catalyst, Bob Sweeny, a high school principal and English teacher who challenges Derek and Danny to stand on their own feet instead of leaning on race-hatred. Stacy Keach is superb as the despicable Cameron Alexander, a skinhead recruiter who’s much better at getting angry white kids to do his dirty work than he is at risking his own neck. Beverly D’Angelo (who will still be drop-dead gorgeous when she’s 99) does a splendid job with Doris Vinyard, a mom desperately fighting to keep the poison of prejudice from destroying her family. Also on hand: Guy Torry in a winning turn as prison inmate and Derek’s most unlikely, ironically fateful comrade Lamont; Elliot Gould as Murray, a decent enough sort who, having been cussed out by Derek as some “kike who’s trying fuck my mother,” is mystified by Sweeny’s insistence that both Derek and Danny are salvageable; Fairusa Balk (who’ll be lucky if she ever gets away from playing nut jobs) as Derek’s violence-junkie of a girlfriend; William Russ as the calm, reasoning, very persuasive bigot of a dad; and Ethan Suplee, who is so convincing as a moronic, ill-mannered skinhead you have to remind yourself (or at least hope like hell) that he’s acting. Tony Kaye directs with a sure, subtle hand this saga that refreshingly owns up to what it is to have a sense of superiority-–and suffer such tragedy as can ensue.
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