Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Docudrama American History X Reviewed

By Milagros Witt

By taking a look at this article, you will be able to get a good inside look at the film "American History X." There are so many different things to understand and appreciate about this film, and most of these will be covered in the upcoming paragraphs. Through a plot synopsis and reflection on the nature of the film, you should be able to understand the motion picture a little better.

This movie was not based on real events, as some people seem to think that it was. Though, the course that the film takes might not be all that unlike what others might have experienced in their own lives. This is a reflection about how we can be led so strongly to believe something that we later cannot believe in anymore through the introduction of circumstances beyond our control.

The movie starts rolling by introducing you to Danny Vinyard, who is still in high school. After getting in some trouble over having written a history paper on a white supremacist, he is told to write a paper on his brother Derek. Derek is Danny's older brother and he is, for all intents and purposes, the main character of the piece.

Derek is a leader of a gang of white supremacists in the neighborhood where they live. They believe that black people are the problem with the world, and that the world might be a much better place if there were no black people. You are briefly given a reasoning for this belief, as you see Derek watch his father killed by a black drug dealer when Derek was very little. A white supremacist took Derek under his wing and brought him up with his Neo-Nazi ideals.

You also learn why Derek is in jail, through the retelling of his brother Danny in a narrative. Three black men attempt to break into Derek's car and he is alerted and heads outside with a pistol drawn. He gets two out of the three with shots, killing one and wounding another. What follows is one of the most graphic sequences ever depicted on film, in which he forces the wounded man to place his teeth on the curb and Derek stomps on the back of his head, killing him.

However, Derek learns rather quickly that there is no real protection or support for his beliefs in prison. Ironically, through the course of the film, Derek is paired with a black man many times and they become friends. When Derek learns from Danny's history teacher that he is headed down the same path, Derek decides that when he gets out that he and his brother are headed far away from this mess.

At the welcome home party of his release, Derek asks his girlfriend to go away with him and Danny, she leaves upset and refusing. Derek is also forced to confront Cameron, the man responsible for Derek's former beliefs and tell him what he now knew to be the truth. The brothers leave and Danny is able to finish his paper, which is spoken as narration through the last bits of the film.

The movie ends with Danny being shot in the bathroom at school by a black kid. Edward Norton (Derek) and Edward Furlong (Danny) bring this powerful story to light. "American History X" is a depiction in the difference between being right and believing that you are right. It is a statement of how far some people are willing to go to prove one way or another.

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