American History X review
Apr. 12th, 2008 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI was reading a decade-old Empire magazine last night (as you do), and it happened to be the one featuring Practical Magic, which is one of those bad films I love anyway - though I really only watch it for the incredible hair. Dave was going to be out this afternoon, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to re-watch it - until I discovered I apparently don't own a copy!
So, as a fallback, I watched the DVD that arrived in the post this week - American History X. Bit of a difference, there...
Upon the film finishing, the first thing I did was to look back at my review of The Departed (October 2006), since it was a similarly excellent film ruined by the last five minutes. American History X was on my rental list for one reason - Edward Norton. I have now seen 12 of his 17 or so films, and, regardless of genre, character and overall film quality, he is uniformly excellent. American History X was no different - fantastic performance on Mr Norton's part, portraying a complex and initially despicable character with charisma, conviction, and humanity.
By the time the last five minutes came around, he had convinced me that there is hope for the world, that even the worst of people can learn from their mistakes and be redeemed. And then the ending destroyed what the film had spent nearly two hours building - reversing the message in the space of seconds to one that suggested nothing will ever change and that people will never have the chance to improve their lives.
Grrr.
Interestingly, Empire agreed with me, saying in their 1998 review that they thought the ending was misguided. They still gave the film four stars, though, which leads to an interesting question - does a bad ending ruin a good film, or should the main body of it be judged on its own merits and not reduced to a bad review just because the endng sucks? It's a difficult question, since the ending generally determines how you feel as you leave the cinema (or switch off the DVD), but it seems a shame for two hours of excellent performances, writing, structure and direction to be dismissed because of a tiny fraction of the film.
In this instance, I'm glad I watched American History X and, overall, I thought it was excellent. I'm just going to pretend the last five minutes didn't happen.
So, as a fallback, I watched the DVD that arrived in the post this week - American History X. Bit of a difference, there...
Upon the film finishing, the first thing I did was to look back at my review of The Departed (October 2006), since it was a similarly excellent film ruined by the last five minutes. American History X was on my rental list for one reason - Edward Norton. I have now seen 12 of his 17 or so films, and, regardless of genre, character and overall film quality, he is uniformly excellent. American History X was no different - fantastic performance on Mr Norton's part, portraying a complex and initially despicable character with charisma, conviction, and humanity.
By the time the last five minutes came around, he had convinced me that there is hope for the world, that even the worst of people can learn from their mistakes and be redeemed. And then the ending destroyed what the film had spent nearly two hours building - reversing the message in the space of seconds to one that suggested nothing will ever change and that people will never have the chance to improve their lives.
Grrr.
Interestingly, Empire agreed with me, saying in their 1998 review that they thought the ending was misguided. They still gave the film four stars, though, which leads to an interesting question - does a bad ending ruin a good film, or should the main body of it be judged on its own merits and not reduced to a bad review just because the endng sucks? It's a difficult question, since the ending generally determines how you feel as you leave the cinema (or switch off the DVD), but it seems a shame for two hours of excellent performances, writing, structure and direction to be dismissed because of a tiny fraction of the film.
In this instance, I'm glad I watched American History X and, overall, I thought it was excellent. I'm just going to pretend the last five minutes didn't happen.
