In this corner, we have veteran music video director Tony Kaye! Making his feature debut, fond of shouting obscenities and making threats in high-profile entertainment magazines ("I will decimate them!" -- Entertainment Weekly). Distraught over some snips here and there made by New Line, his next flick's a documentary chronicling the nature of the skewering.
And in this corner, Ga Ga Actor Edward Norton! Making an impressive debut in Primal Fear, continuing his displays of thespic bravado as a lawyer in The People vs. Larry Flynt and singing in Woody Allen's underrated Everyone Says I Love You. Gaining 30 pounds of muscle and a goatee, allegedly rewriting his character and re-editing the film himself.
Unless you're a film freak trapped in a hermetically sealed, human-size microwave oven or you've given up on 1998's yo-yo celluloid offerings, none of this info is new.
But surprisingly, American History X ain't that bad of a flick and, if Kaye had his way, it could have been one of the finest films of Allen Smithee's oeuvre.
The second film this month dealing with Nazism (apparently, the dominant theme for this year's autumn collection of mainstream Hollywood dramas), American History X tackles the skinhead culture of Venice Beach -- specifically, two brothers (Edward Norton and Edward Furlong) growing up in it.
Furlong's just written a book report on Mein Kampf and he's been called in by a teacher and vice principal (DS9's Avery Brooks) for a private course of history. Soon Furlong's forced to write another essay. Through this plot device, we discover more about Norton, a former skinhead just getting out of prison because of a particularly grisly hate crime that opens up the film.
Now if all that sounds a bit hokey, I respond with a simple question: What can you expect when Norton's character has a giant, over-the-top swastika on his chest? A couple of reviewers have correlated Kaye's style with that of Samuel Fuller's gritty melodramas.
Kaye, oddly enough, is more subdued than Fuller. The intensity you would expect from skinheads falls a bit flat, having about as much visceral impact as an ABC afterschool special.
This is not to say that Kaye refrains from being flagrantly metaphoric. One of the flaws of virgin writer David McKenna's script is something many first-timers infuriatingly use: the flashback. History X's flashbacks don't kill off the movie completely, particularly a lengthy one illustrating Norton's days in prison (one of the film's more effective sequences).
But Kaye made the tactical mistake of shooting all of the flashbacks in black-and-white, which makes this flaw all the more obvious. Whether the decision was made after one too many viewings of if…, I cannot say. But Lindsay Anderson, at least, had subtlety (and in fact managed to make a financial limitation -- using the cheapest film stock available, B&W or color -- work to his advantage).
Kaye, however, must be lauded for his effort. He photographed this baby in addition to directing it and he achieves a streamlined gritty look that is intriguingly stylish.
Throwing several great actors into the mix also helps. Beverly D'Angelo adds warmth as the chain-smoking mother dying of lung cancer. Stacy Keach shows up as a David Metzger-like mentor and, while looking occasionally ridiculous with a beret and sunglasses, his presence is welcome. Fairuza Balk is simply amazing as Norton's girlfriend, truly creepy and utterly convincing when she spouts off white power politics. Even Furlong isn't bad, and he may very well shake his T2 typecasting after a couple more movies.
Surprisingly though, it is Norton who is the unconvincing one. Perhaps Norton has tackled too much here. Maybe he's too Ivy League. I dunno. But I simply could not be sold on him, particularly as he's spouting off skinhead politics (taken word-for-word from the speeches of Pete Wilson).
There's a scene in which D'Angelo has invited her Jewish boyfriend (Elliott Gould -- someone get this guy a decent role) over for dinner. Soon, the table becomes a firing ground with Norton going off on how whites are oppressed by all them niggers and spicks moving into neighborhoods, taking jobs, yada yada yada. In fact, the scene completely relies on Norton to carry this disturbing ideology home. But all you have to do is look in his eyes and realize that it's all an act. The intensity Kaye was shooting for just doesn't work here, and it doesn't help that we see Norton later on as a goody-goody trying to steer his brother away from the clutches of skinhead politics.
It makes you think that there may be truth to Kaye's contentions. Still, some conscious decisions made by Kaye are clearly up there on screen.
So is Kaye's prizefight worth fighting?
As boxing promoter Don King once said, "It's a nice little town, but what's up with everyone's hair?"