Eddie furlong american history x full#

No! They're not products of their environments! That's crap! Minorities don't give two shits about this country! They come here to exploit it, not to embrace it!

Yeah, it's race-related! Every problem in this country is race-related! Not just 's immigration, AIDS, welfare! Those are problems of the black community, the Hispanic community, the Asian community! They're not white problems!Īren't those really issues that deal more with poverty? You think maybe your father's murder was race-related? Well, this country's becoming a haven for criminals, so what do you expect? Decent hard-working Americans like my dad are getting rubbed out by social parasites. (younger, wearing a Venice Beach High Basketball jersey) How do you think I feel? I think it's typical. Look, I know this is tough, but how do you feel right now? Derek, if you could come down here, please, for a second. We're at the Vinyard home now, and Lieutenant Vinyard's oldest son Derek has agreed to talk with us for a moment. County firefighter Dennis Vinyard was shot and killed battling a blaze at a suspected Compton drug den. No matter how strained their collaboration may have been, both Kaye and Norton can be proud to have created a film that addresses the issue of racism with dramatically forceful impact.

And yet British director Tony Kaye (who would later protest against Norton's creative intervention during post-production) manages to juggle these qualities-and a compelling clash of visual styles-to considerable effect. Once released, Derek struggles to save his brother from a violent fate, and American History X partially suffers from a mix of intense emotions, awkward sentiment, and predictably inevitable plotting. Lacking Derek's gift of rebel rhetoric, Danny is easily swayed into the violent, hateful lifestyle that Derek disowns during his thoughtful time in prison. The film's basic message-that hate is learned and can be unlearned-is expressed through Derek's kid brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), whose sibling hero-worship increases after Derek is imprisoned (or, in Danny's mind, martyred) for the killing of two black men.

Eddie furlong american history x full#

Looking lean and mean with a swastika tattoo and a mind full of hate, Derek Vinyard (Norton) has inherited racism from his father, and that learning has been intensified through his service to Cameron (Stacy Keach), a grown-up thug playing tyrant and teacher to a growing band of disenfranchised teens from Venice Beach, California, all hungry for an ideology that fuels their brooding alienation. If that statement doesn't horrify you, it should Norton is so fully immersed in his role as a neo-Nazi skinhead that his character's eloquent defense of racism is disturbingly persuasive-at least on the surface. Note: the violence, blood and dismemberment have properly earned the film an R rating.Perhaps the highest compliment you can pay to Edward Norton is that his Oscar-nominated performance in American History X nearly convinces you that there is a shred of logic in the tenets of white supremacy. So no haunted high schools, giggling, drinking beer in cars, and no skinny dipping in the local lake. All of the vampires and their hunters are portrayed by adult actors who play the situation seriously. One key reason this picture works so well is there isn't a teenager in the cast, and it's not juvenile in any way. Carpenter holds nothing back in creating scene after bloody scene (the film is also filled with some smart talk). James Woods stars in a surprisingly entertaining horror film as a vampire slayer out to destroy a legendary opponent, a vampire master named Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith), and the many bloodsuckers he controls. 'American History X' has been rated R for its extreme violence and language, but it would seem to be hard to deal credibly with the phenomenon of skinheads without displaying their hate and its consequences.