American History X (1998)

Sight and Sound
"...Edward Norton's Oscar-nominated performance is the film's magnetic centre..." 05/??/1999 p.36-7

Total Film
"...An intense achievement....An excellent cast, the young leads stand out, including a best-yet performance from Furlong..." -- 4 out of 5 stars 10/01/1999 p.98

Entertainment Weekly
"...Norton breaks loose....A triumph of acting....[Kaye] works with flair and verve and control..." -- Rating: B 11/06/1998 pp.51-2

New York Times
"...AMERICAN HISTORY X has enough fiery acting and provocative bombast to make its impact felt....It has been directed with a mixture of handsome photo-realism and visceral punch..." 10/28/1998 p.E1

Box Office
"...Genuinely provocative....There's scarcely a false not to the performance of either Furlong or Norton, the latter an almost certain Academy Award nominee..." 12/01/1998 p.44

The New York Times 7 of 10
...has enough firey acting and provocative bombast to make its impact felt... it has been directed with a mixture of handsome photo-realism and visceral punch... American History X knows which raw nerves to hit. - Janet Maslin
 
USA Today 0 of 10
[In American History X], there is... plenty that is powerful, starting with Edward Norton's spellbinding performance as an articulate neo-Nazi just out of prison after having brutally killed two black men breaking into his car. Transformed during incarceration by means not initially divulged, he's now bent on curbing his younger brother's own sociopathic vitriol. Edward Furlong plays the latter in a role he's come to own: the mixed-up but basically decent kid in need of serious grooming tips... Furlong's role is underwritten... yet these flaws don't sink in until you leave the theater. Supporting player Guy Torry helps out by giving the story a belated shot in the arm as Norton's prison cellmate. While this movie is sometimes overbaked, it is the first major studio release in a while to engross wall-to-wall. - Mike Clark
 
Box Office Magazine 0 of 10
Alternately didactic and visceral, American History X is both difficult to watch and impossible not to. Though considerably talkier than is perhaps prudent, David McKenna's hard-hitting script wisely avoids propagandizing any one point of view, presenting all sides of the racial divide with compelling urgency and honesty. Though the story does ultimately make a moral judgment, it does not do so lightly, nor does it allow the audience the luxury of righteous satisfaction--a fatalistic, if realistic, view that will not sit well with certain viewers... Arguably stronger as a cinematographer than as a director, Kaye has given American History X an unmistakable look, accented by stunning black-and-white imagery--more than sufficient compensation for such occasional indulgences as one would expect from a commercial and music video director. Kaye's hand with actors, however, is less certain, betraying an awkwardness with dialogue and staging that could easily have bogged down the narrative were it not for the superlative acting skills of the two Edwards. There's scarcely a false note to the performance of either Furlong or Norton, the latter an almost certain Academy Award nominee. - Wade Major
 
New York Times 0 of 10
Presented in the ersatz poetic idiom of videos and commercials, this is an inflated yet gut-slugging film that dares to address America's neo-Nazi culture with brutal candor. Its toughest images stick even when its lurid self-aggrandizing spins out of control... Having made his electrifying screen debut with an essentially dual role in Primal Fear, [Edward] Norton now plays a two-faceted character with even more fury. He appears as the ideologically double-jointed Derek Vinyard, who begins the film as a hate-mongering skinhead only to undergo a total personality transformation. Once Derek renounces his past ("Those guys, the gang, that life -- I'm done with it!") the film can consider the lingering residue of bigotry. Not surprisingly (the executive producer, Steve Tisch, was also a producer of Forrest Gump), it repudiates the same violence it initially exploited in shocking, lovingly slow motion... Though its story elements are all too easily reduced to a simple outline, American History X has enough fiery acting and provocative bombast to make its impact felt. For one thing, its willingness to take on ugly political realities gives it a substantial raison d'etre. For another, it has been directed with a mixture of handsome photo-realism and visceral punch... The film's pivotal figure is Derek's impressionable younger brother, Danny, who has a spongelike interest in everything Derek espouses. Danny, as played with wrenching vulnerability by Edward Furlong, is the film's most blatant reminder that actions have consequences, though this is something most viewers will already know... For all its glaring hyperbole, American History X knows which raw nerves to hit. - Janet Maslin