by Dmetri Kakmi

Much has been made of the fact that director Tony Kaye disowned his first feature film after star Edward Norton took over and completed the editing of "American History X". After you see the film, you can sympathise with Kaye's insistence on crediting Humpty Dumpty with the directorship. Whatever Kaye's original intentions, it's doubtful he would have crafted such a film as this. During its overlong stay "American History X" not only manages to trivialise some of the most important issues facing American society today, but also unwittingly promotes the dangerous allure of skinheads.

Traditionally, X marks the spot where the pirate treasure is buried. In the case of this film, however, X marks the spot of America's first right-wing and racist polemic since D. W. Griffith's "Birth Of A Nation" (1915). Thanks to a variety of factors, which are every publicist's dream, this unassuming film has been thrust into the foreground of the debate on some of the most pressing issues dominating western headlines. And, I'm afraid, it's out of its depth. Only in Hollywood land, where the height of human drama seems to be the cloying "On Golden Pond" or the sanctimonious "Philadelphia", can such explosive material as race relations, youth alienation, the return of right-wing politics and urban decay be given the simplistic, sentimental treatment it gets here and still be called an intelligently provocative film by an egghead at the "Boston Globe". But what's even scarier is that the film's racist rants are far more convincing than the wet liberal schpiels about holding hands and loving one another. Yeah, an extremist skin is really gonna buy a piece of that pie.

In telling the story of two brothers from a comfortable, middle-class home who lose their way and fall in with a neo-Nazi skinhead gang after their father is murdered by a black man, the film opts for redemption and easy answers to the accompaniment of swelling ecclesiastic music on the soundtrack. As seems to be the case with most Hollywood dramas, the personal is favoured over the social. It's safe, easy territory. You don't have to come up with any answers, you don't have to even try to see the larger picture. Just keep it in your own backyard.

According to the film's line all skinheads are misguided, alienated yobs who are taking out their frustrations on blacks and Jews. And all their problems would be solved if they stepped into a black man's shoes for a day.

In this manner, Norton's transformation from a raving fanatic to the voice of reason after his prison ordeal is so rapid that you're not even sure if he's the same person anymore. Sure he gets raped by a bunch of tattooed Muscle Marys in the shower and a sweet black guy befriends him. But there are no gradations in his character. No gradual transformation or realisations. One minute he's crushing heads on the pavement, the next he's preaching love and tolerance while the seagulls wheel around him. What happened? Somebody, did I miss something?

Intriguingly, just to show that the bad guys have got one over the good guys, Norton's skinhead persona is more charismatic and believable than the decent guy he turns into in the second half of the film. In a riveting scene, Norton runs out into the street wearing just white boxers. With his shaved head, goatee, sculpted torso and swastika tattoo over his heart, he makes one hell of a rough-trade hunk. After he murders two black guys who are breaking into his car, he stands in the middle of the street with hands outstretched and eyes burning with righteous fire as cops surround him -- he is a messiah of black rage and fury. I can already see that hypnotic image adorning any number of skinhead Websites.

Furthermore, the speed with which Edward Furlong's character rips all the neo-Nazi paraphernalia off his wall during the final rousing moments intimates that, in the eyes of the film, the skinhead movement is just a phase the disenfranchised go through before becoming law-abiding citizens. (While we're on the subject of Furlong, this puffy eyed, pouting pretty boy would have been better off donning a wig and playing the female love interest. Not for a minute do you believe that he's a street tough with a bad-ass attitude.)

Most of the genuine skinheads I met in the early 80s were morons. They couldn't string two words together. But some of them were highly intelligent, articulate men who lived by their extremist ideology. They saw themselves as soldiers of a new order of racial cleansing and purification. It's an all-encompassing political ideology that they fervently believe will save the world. This is partly the role of Edward Norton in the film, but the big daddy neo-Nazi pulling the strings is played by a wasted Stacy Keach. Unfortunately his role is so underwritten you never get to feel the power of this man who supposedly preys on alienated youth and turns them into his hate-filled puppets. He's more like a simpering paedophile than a brilliant mastermind capable of hypnotising his accolades with self-righteous hatred. You can't believe in him, and if you can't how can the kids?

Combat rule number one: don't underestimate your enemy. As recent events show, right-wingers are not stupid. Sentimental cop-out codas like the one offered by "American History X" poses no threat to them. It just shows how intellectually and politically ineffective the left has become. "American History X" would have benefited with a double dose of the unflinching truth pumped out by the visceral skinhead film, "Romper Stomper" (1992) and the hypnotic "Le Haine" (1995). Another great example of this genre is Penelope Spheeris's "Suburbia" (1983), which combines intelligent social commentary with frightening anti-social behaviour to superb effect.

Edward Norton is not a fool. He is a brilliant actor who has managed to steal just about every movie he has appeared in over the last decade, and his stunning performance as the fanatical Derek Vineyard is one good reason to see "American History X". But there's a lesson in how he managed to tip over this hijacked film. There's no guarantee that Kaye would have done a better job, but obviously Norton's ego got in the way of telling a good story. "American History X" was his opportunity of a lifetime. If he managed to score an award-winning performance, he could up the stakes in the Hollywood game, and it seems he was willing to sacrifice the integrity of the film to achieve his personal ends. He went for that Academy Award nomination (and got it) with the sort of fanaticism that can blind a man to all of life's little but oh-so-important peripherals. You would think he would have learnt from his character's example. This sort of thespian megalomania is the reason why Hitchcock treated his actors like cattle.