Month: March 2005

Finding Neverland (2004)

finding neverland

Peter Pan, is, of course, the immensely popular story of a boy who wouldn’t grow up. The Internet Movie DataBase lists 8 movies with that title, and there are many more films that have been made using the same story. Finding Neverland is about Peter Pan’s creator, JM Barrie, and his relationship with the Davies family and how they inspired Barrie to write the story.

We begin the film finding Barrie (Johnny Depp) having just completed the staging of a very expensive, new play, which also turns out to be a bomb. His marriage is falling apart because while Barrie is himself a childlike man, his wife seems to be very much an adult who cannot participate in her husband’s whims and dreams. Enter Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet), a widow trying to support four children with very little money. Barrie immediately falls in love with her children. He takes them to the park, plays cowboys and Indians, dances with bears, and indulges every childlike fantasy they can dream up. He is every bit the child they are. They in turn are the muses for his next play. Throughout the film, we see the children acting out bits, which we know of from Peter Pan. We see his inspiration in celluloid.

This is a good, well-made film. It is aptly directed, and the actors all do fine jobs. My English friend notes that Depp does a decent job with a Scottish accent, and as always, the remainder of his performance is top-notch.

My problem with the film lies within the characterization of Barrie, himself. He is made out to be a wonderful, beautiful dreamer. A man who has the heart of a child. He is someone who lives in his imagination. We see the world through his eyes. While dancing in the park with his dog, we see it transform into a circus and the dog into a bear. Anyone who dares to question his fancies, to expect him to act as an adult, is shown in an unfavorable light. Both Barries’ wife, Mary (Rahda Mitchell), and Davies’ mother, Emma Du Maurier (Julie Christie) do not care for Barrie’s behavior and both are made out to be villains. Yet his behavior is to be frowned upon. A married man gallivanting about town with a widow and her children is neither acceptable nor Right.

The film does its best to show us that Barries’ marriage is not doing well besides the problems with the Davies household. They quibble about other issues and we can tell there has not been much love under that roof for quite some time. It is also quick to point out that the relationship between Barrie and Ms. Davies is anything but sexual. In fact, Barrie seems to be quite asexual. There is never a hint of masculinity or sexuality portrayed at all. But these are all excuses for allowing a grown, married man to spend all of his time with a woman who is not his wife, and four children who are not his own.

The film wants us to believe. It wants us to believe that life is worth dreaming about. That the eyes of a child can see mysteries forgotten by the likes of grown-ups. That they contain a secret joy we too, could experience if only we believed. It also wants us to see that if we do not behave as children, if our minds are lost in the responsibilities of adults, then we are missing out on life. It is hard to refute such beliefs. Life is hard. To be able to escape into a world of pirates and fairies is a miraculous thing. We should all be able to slip into the world of fantasy and make-believe for just a while and let the stress of being an adult slip away. But, there is the cusp of the matter, we can slip away and dream for a time, but life demands that we return. It is irresponsible and shameful to drop the responsibilities of our life, to live our fantasies. To leave the bonds of marriage for another woman, even if you never technically have an affair, is irredeemable. To accept and love a character for doing that very thing is irresponsible.

All of this is not to say that Finding Neverland is without merit. In fact, it is an enjoyable, well-made film. It is an interesting portrait of the author of one of the English language’s most beloved stories. Barrie, as seen here, was a gifted, flawed man. It is a beautiful thing to see a man filled with such whimsy. But we must be careful not to believe that being whimsical gives us the freedom to give up on being grown up.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

the sweet smell of success poster

This is the kind of film that could coin an expression like “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” except that people have been using that line for every piece of crap that was made more than two years ago. Go ahead and say it to yourself, and I’ll say that David Mamet’s Glengarry, Glen Ross comes close. Both feature snarling and biting dialog. Both have irredeemable characters that will do anything for success. Mamet’s characters are mostly down-and-outers who are scrapping at each other to find some sampling of their former successes. In Sweet Smell of Success, there are successful characters and losers, both of which need each other to survive. It is a tale of a successful columnist and his need for a low-life press agent. It is a bitter, bleak story of power, success, and the desire to have more.

Burt Lancaster plays JJ Hunsecker, a powerful columnist who is at the top of his game. He gets what he wants when he wants it with no questions asked. He can make or break celebrities with a quick blurb in his column. He dines with politicians and gets any girl he wants. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a low-rent press agent who needs Lancaster’s blurbs for his clients to keep in business. The problem is, Hunsecker has cut Falco out of his columns because Falco hasn’t delivered on a deal they made. Though Hunsecker can garner the love and admiration of anyone he chooses, the one woman he cannot win over is his own sister. As he repeatedly says throughout the film, she’s all he has. The problem is she is in love with a jazz singer, and they plan to marry. Hunsecker can’t bear the thought of losing his sister, so he forces Falco to get rid of the boy by any means necessary.

The film is relentless. From beginning to end it never stops its pounding. There is never a breath of kindness. The two characters with some redeeming characteristics Hunsecker’s sister, Susan (Susan Harrison), and her boyfriend, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), are so overshadowed by the continual foul play by Hunsecker and Falco that they come away with a foul stench.

Tony Curtis pulls a performance that reminded me of his turn as the Boston Strangler. It is not difficult to see his Falco turning to murder if it helped him succeed. Though as the strangler, he seems to have found some remorse for his actions, whereas Falco is irredeemable to the very end.

There is a scene in the middle of the picture where Falco pulls a trick to convince a mid level performer to make Falco his press agent. At this point, Falco needs all the clients he can get. Later the performer comes to Falco, ready to sign him as his agent. Falco, now feeling some signs of success brushes the performer off without a second thought. It is a telling scene of just how heartless and uncaring Falco has become.

Where has Burt Lancaster been all my life? Sadly enough, the only film I can remember watching him in is the 1986 toss-off comedy Tough Guys. His performance here is nothing short of astonishing. He is the king of his castle, never stepping off his high throne, treating everyone as servants. Even his shows of affection for Susan are grotesque and menacing.

This is a story that is hard to watch. It is brutal, and menacing with nary a redeeming aspect. But it is a film that must be watched. The craftsmanship of the filmmakers and the performances of the actors elevate it above so many others. It is nearly a morality tale of the horrors that befall humanities greed.

Answer

The people have spoken. I will begin adding more daily life information to the blog. I think I omitted it for a while because I was thinking too far ahead. I am really enjoying writing blog posts each day and have begun to think about what happens when I leave France. No one is going to be interested in my daily life in Indiana. That leaves humorous stories and reviews. Well, I’ve only got so many stories to tell, but I can keep reviewing for a long time. Eventually, I’d like to have a site with loads of reviews on it. But, that’s way in the future, and for now, I’m still in France. So, I will continue to post the bits and pieces of my day.

Speaking of which here’s how my day has gone so far. Once again we received notice that our water was going to be turned off from 8:30 until 12:30 this morning. I was unable to rouse myself out of bed until about 8:25, pure laziness I know. I jumped into the shower to find a tiny amount of pressure and no heat. Somehow I managed to wash my hair and body but didn’t try a shave. Though clean, I didn’t feel shower fresh, and felt this was a bad omen for the day.

Our friend, Pamela, has gone the way of the Brewster and spilled some kind of sauce on her keyboard, rendering it useless. She does not have a regular keyboard port and asked us if she could switch out the USB keyboard she gave us with a regular one. We did that yesterday only to come home and find out the port I thought was for a keyboard, is in reality, a port for another monitor.

So, I ventured out to FNAC this morning to purchase a keyboard. The cheap ones only had PS/2 connections and would not work with our computer. I managed to find a nice-looking cordless USB keyboard for 40 Euros. Double-checking to ensure that I had the right keyboard with the right price I moved to the cashier thinking I had a real bargain. Apparently, I needed a triple-check because she announced that it was 150 Euros! At first, I wanted to argue that the tag said it was much, much cheaper, but my language skills kept me from it.

Then I stammered like an idiot. I can never remember the verbs: to need, to want, and must. Finding no way to say “I don’t want this,” I kept saying I was sorry and to please excuse me in French, and “I don’t want this” in English. She got the picture and reminded me of my verb (vouloir). Felling that I had let down my entire country by being another stupid American who can’t speak a lick of French, I went back to the keyboards scratching my head. After confirming that the keyboard appeared to be only 40 Euros I decided to take the tram to another store.

A tram ride found me at Auchan. There I investigated the keyboards very carefully and decided on a very nice 40 Euro model. I wandered the store for several minutes hoping to find one of those price checkers they have on the walls periodically. The only one I found was broken. So I held my breath and stood in line. While in line a man with a shopping cart full of water pulled in behind me. The cashier began saying something to him very rapidly the only part of which I understood was “caisse vert.” This also happened to be printed on a sign above the cashier.

“Oh no,” I thought, “Why is it every time I stand in line at Auchan there is some strange business with the color green?” The man proceeded to take the water out of the cart and push the cart aside. “Perhaps this is a no-cart aisle” I said to myself. Inside I was afraid the “vert” had something to do with greeneries meaning groceries. The aisle I was standing in was in the grocery store section of Auchan, and I began to think there may be some separation of purchasing stations. But no, the cashier got up to talk to the cart man. At this moment she was replaced by another cashier thus free to do as she pleased. After a bit of conversation with the man, both of them retrieved the cart and pushed it to where they are kept. Cart man returned to the line and everything was fine.

Oh, and my 40 Euro keyboard, was actually 40 Euros this time.

A Perfect Day

It has been absolutely gorgeous here the last four days. The sun has shined brightly, the few clouds have been white and puffy, and the temperature has hovered around the upper 60s. Yesterday was just about perfect. I slept until around 9:30 (lazy I know, but what perfect day would have me waking up early?) We finally got out of bed, had breakfast, lounged about basking in the sun coming in through the window, and prepared for the day. After a shower, dressing, and a light lunch we focused our thoughts on what we would like to do for the day. We decided it was too pretty to do anything productive and went for a leisurely walk.

Nearby one of the universities has a botanical garden. Our feet took us there. We were a little disappointed because though many flowers have been planted almost none have actually sprouted. Still, there was a pond and lots of greenery. We relaxed in the sun and contemplated whether we should spend our afternoon sitting by the water or travel on and find the Orangerie.

We decided to travel and walked through the city towards the European Parliament. Next to this governmental building, there is a large park. Unbeknownst to me, until arrival, there is also a small zoo. We gazed at a wide variety of birds including peacocks and ostrich, and some monkeys and emus.

On the opposite side of the zoo is a lovely stretch of green grass which surrounds a little pond. We sauntered around the water and bought some ice cream on the far end. Sauntering back we found a bench to sit on and sat out the remainder of the afternoon. There is nothing better than sitting in the sun on a beautiful stretch of land with the girl you love.

In the evening I went to the boys and played the French version of Monopoly. It’s an old game so everything is in Franks. That was a bit disconcerting because the highest denomination was a 50,000 frank versus the piddling 500 US dollar in the American version. I never knew how much money I really had. Not that this disturbed my game playing any, for I mopped the floor with the other players. Yes, my friends I won, and I won big.

After, I picked up Amy from Pamela’s and we walked home in the gentle, still night. There have been better days, I am sure, but I would have to think hard to remember one.

The Elephant Man (1980)

the elephant man poster

David Lynch’s second full-length film contains the odd assortment of freakish characters we’ve become accustomed to in his films. Yet, despite having one of the more outlandish characters he has ever put on celluloid, it remains his most sentimental film. The Elephant Man is based upon the true story of John Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman with massive deformities throughout his body. He performed in freakshows for many years until he was found by Dr. Treves who cared for him and placed him in Whitechapel hospital. It is his time in this hospital that the film concerns itself with. For here, Merrick is able to live, more or less, as a gentleman. He is well-fed, well-kept, and educated. He can read, write, speak eloquently, and even begins to entertain the well-to-dos of society.

It is filmed beautifully in black and white. It is a very well-made piece of cinema. Lynch, for the most part, stays away from his trademark imagery and symbolism and sticks to more traditional storytelling, although the opening sequence is a straight Lynch nightmare. That the characters come from real life and not Lynch’s twisted imagination only serves to add to the surrealism of the film.

It has been said that Lynch is too sentimental in this movie. That he manipulates the audience too much. Ebert even goes as far as saying Lynch tricks the audience into believing that Merrick is a noble and courageous man. He suggests, that rather than being noble, Merrick is merely doing the best that he can, under poor circumstances. It is true that the film is sentimental. There is hardly a scene that does not prick the audience’s emotions.

How many of us would dare to get out of bed each day with similar difficulties? And here, this man, though physically plagued, manages to keep up his spirits and even write and build card sculptures. It would be a poor director at that who could not produce a tear at such a sight. If we pretend it is not a noble feat for such a creature to retain his humanity and good cheer, while being constantly bombarded with inhumane indecencies are we any better than those who stand outside the carnival and jeer?

Yet there is something in these critiques of sentimentalism. Lynch continues to use his tricks as a director to keep our eyes wet. There is a scene in which Merrick meets Dr. Treve’s wife and breaks down with tears at her simple kind acts. His tears state that no one has been so kind to him as to treat him like a gentleman. Though effective, this is using the craft of filmmaking to do nothing but manipulate emotions. In other films, I would lambaste this type of sentimentalism and chastise the audience for falling for it. Yet the overall sadness throughout the story makes me fall for it here. I cannot commend such use of it in the film anywhere, and yet it works for me in this particular instance.

Overall, The Elephant Man is a fine achievement for a young director. Lynch would go on to make more articulate, less sentimental films. But here we find him assured in his imagery and storytelling. He effectively sweeps the viewer into the emotional turmoil of such a sad, hopeless story.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

the hound of the baskervilles

In my determination to read all of the classic detective fiction I recently picked up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. I have a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories, but those are a little too simplified for my tastes. They consist of a setup for the mystery and then a detailed description of Holmes using his near supernatural ability of observation to determine the culprit. Most of these never develop any real sense of mystery because Holmes is too brilliant for the reader’s good. We are briefly marveled by his powers of observation and deduction, to the point that we begin trying to concentrate our own powers on the mundane tasks of our lives. Upon some contemplation, though, it is easy to realize that paying attention to details will not bring us the answers the super detective seems to collect from the air at will. There are too many possibilities as to why our neighbor has a bit of mud on the cuffs of his pants to be able to surmise the reason out of sheer reasoning.

This being said, I was looking forward to reading a longer-length novel about this super sleuth. With more pages, surely Doyle would prepare a better mystery for his hero to unravel. Still with a mere 174 pages, Doyle managed to create a more well-rounded story and develop enough mystery to satisfy my tastes.

The story revolves around Henry Baskerville and his inherited homestead amongst the moors of England. It seems his family has been haunted by a demon hound for generations. The patriarchs of the family have befallen many a beastly end in this home. Not one for superstition, Henry moves to the homestead from America after he inherited the land when the previous owner, Sir Charles Baskerville, fell dead of fright. After a series of threats and strange circumstances, Dr. Watson travels to the Baskerville home to investigate. Holmes has announced himself too busy in London to be able to make the trip himself.

This point was a brilliant maneuver by Doyle. Allowing the more human Dr. Watson to do much of the investigation himself allows the mystery time to develop rather than be solved immediately by Holmes. Dr. Watson investigates the few residences around Baskerville Hall and finds them all to be rather suspicious in their own way. Suspense is built by the appearance of an escaped convict loose in the area, and the appearance of a mysterious stranger roaming the moors.

When Holmes does appear back on the scene, Doyle allows the action to take the place of Holmes’s usual verbal pomposity. Though, we are told numerous times that this is a most interesting and difficult case by the detective. As if the reader is too dumb to appreciate the difficulties of the case, we need to be reminded by Holmes over and over again. Once the case is solved, the novel is concluded with a meeting between Holmes and Dr. Watson months after the case had occurred. Here Holmes once again must amaze us with his brilliant deductive powers. Once again, a mystery novel must tie up loose ends with a lot of verbiage.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was a light, enjoyable read. It is easy to see why Sherlock Holmes mysteries were so popular. They are easy to read, quickly paced, and pack enough muscle to keep the page turned. Holmes penetrating powers of observation and deduction are fascinating. Like magic tricks, they entrance the reader and make us feel that with a little help and a lot of practice, we could also perform such feats. As serious literature, the book fails to be scrutinized. I will read more of the Holmes mysteries, and these books will hold a place on my bookcase, but they will have to hold a second shelf to the true masters of the genre.

Two Stories

I’ve been meaning to post these for a bit, but haven’t had the time to write them down.

Story #1

A few days back I had to walk home from my French lesson due to the tram workers being on strike. As I walked, I pondered the peculiarity of the way in which French workers strike. In the US the mere talk of a strike can get action. Whenever union workers actually do strike it is often a long, brutal affair. Days, weeks, even months roll by while workers and managers bicker over the terms of an agreement. In France, a group of workers will often strike for one day only. Since I have been here, the Post Office, the university clerks, and now the tram workers have gone on strike for a day. Sometimes there are longer strikes, but it seems it is a normal practice for workers to have these short strikes periodically. It is like a way to show the managers what they are capable of doing. The workers tend to congregate downtown airing their grievances to whomever will listen. I digress. As I was walking home, these were the thoughts I was having.

On a long stretch of road, two college aged girls crossed my path. One of them stopped and spoke directly to me. Being lost in thought I didn’t catch a single word. Something on my face must have registered this fact and the girl repeated what she said. Having spent the last 5 months not understanding a word any stranger spoke to me, I prepared my sentences explaining that I was a foreigner and didn’t understand French. Yet to my astoundment, I actually understood what she was asking. She needed to know where Place de Etoile was located. It was as a light from Heaven broke through the clouds and shone a ray on my head. I could almost hear the angels sing “Hallelujah.” I understood!

I managed to say a couple of words in my excitement and point towards the city square they were looking for a couple of blocks over. They understood my words as well and thanked me for my time.

My elation was held short though. That very evening we received a telephone call. I managed to understand who was calling (the mother of the girl we are sub-letting the apartment from) and why she was calling (to thank us for sending some money we owed her), but she continued to speak with a fast tongue, and I quickly got lost in the shuffle. I tried to ask her to hold on one moment and let me catch my mental breath. But she didn’t understand and kept speaking. Finally, deflated, I gave up and handed the phone to Amy.

Story 2

A different day I was performing the same action as in the previous story: walking home from my French lesson. This time no person stopped to chat, but a car did stop in the middle of the road. He was parking himself a few feet from a rather busy intersection. He was on the busy end of the street, and though it was passed the rush hour, traffic was still quite heavy. I could see the passenger door open and a woman was partially outside the door. At first I thought that there must have been a breakdown of sorts, and they were in the process of looking for its source. As I walked closer I realized this was not the case. The driver was simply dropping off the passenger, and she was reluctant to leave. Instead she was engaging him in conversation, In the middle of a highway, with loads of traffic surrounding them, they were having a chat. I walked slowly in order to see how long they were going to do this. After about 5 minutes of me watching this situation, the car drove away.

To add to this obnoxiousness, there was a pull off but a few feet in front of the car. Instead of parking his car a few feet forward, and remain out of the way of oncoming traffic, this joker decided to stop there, in the middle of the street.

I suppose they chalk this up to libertè. The French fought very hard for their right to ignore laws that don’t suit their taste for the moment. This guy was just using his God given right to thumb his nose at everything and enjoy one last moment with his girl.

Around The World In 80 Days (2004)

around the world in 80 days movie poster

There are some films that I make no plans to watch, nor have any desire to see. Yet, sometimes, through circumstance, watch them is exactly what I do. Recently, I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house. Another invitee decided to rent this Jackie Chan vehicle. Never to be one to turn down a free movie, I watched.

I am not one of Jackie Chan’s fanboys. The action sequences in his films are generally spectacular, and often hilarious. But his film’s lack of a cohesive narrative, god-awful dialog, and horrid acting turn me off, more than any stunt can save. From time to time, I do manage to catch one of his films, even enough to notice their general degeneration of late. His earlier, non-English films, though containing worse overall production value, had more bang for your buck. His American-made films seem to be bent on adding plot and characterization to the detriment of the action. This might be commendable if the additional plotting was any good. But more often than not, it’s just a glossy version of the same old schlock. Around the World in 80 Days follows this formula.

Waiting thirty minutes into a Jackie Chan film for the first action sequence is an atrocity. When that action sequence is lame, you might as well take up the pooper scooper and walk the dog. The movie followed this pattern. Thirty minutes of mind-numbing story development followed by tame, lame action sequences.

The plot is old and rehashed. Loosely based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, Chan plays Lau Xing masquerading as Passpartout, servant of snooty inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan). Through a bet, they impart on a journey around the world in…oh, who cares? Who watches a Jackie Chan film for the plot? And if you don’t know this story by now, stick around and I’m sure they’ll make another TV movie of it shortly.

The film is scattered with high-profile cameos. Most interesting of which is the now California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s turn as a Turkish prince. The others are mostly pointless and unfunny cameos designed to make the audience go “oh that’s Rob Schneider” and miss the fact that he’s amazingly unfunny and his character serves no particular point. The casting of Kathy Bates as the Queen seems most spectacularly ill-placed. Her British accent is appalling. Was it too hard to find a real Brit to play this role? Some of my French friends have better British accents than that.

With the exception of but a few moments, the fight scenes, few that we get, are unspectacular. The joy of Jackie Chan is in his ability to stage acrobatic action sequences while using an odd array of props. Chairs, stools, flags, and culinary devices have all served as weapons in previous pictures, yet here he is mostly intent on using his hands to fight against regular swords and blades. It’s not that the action is terrible per se, but that they pale in comparison with so many of the others he has performed.

There is really nothing to recommend this movie. It is age appropriate enough. There is little to offend the younger sensibilities (besides the acting, plot, and production values)If you have children, I suppose, they might find it silly enough to enjoy. But, with so many other quality films out there appropriate for children, I can’t make myself recommend this one to them either.

Shadows and Fog (1991)

shadows and fog poster

Editors Note: I wrote this long before I knew of the various accusations against Woody Allen. I have no comment to make about those allegations, but as I am reposting this review in 2022 I wanted to note that this is not any sort of endorsement of Allen as a human being, but simply a review of his film.


Woody Allen’s tribute to German Expressionism is better than most critics would have you believe. Sure there is very little plot to speak of, it’s more a series of vignettes and gags than a cohesive narrative. Sure, it ends rather abruptly, never solving the mystery, but none of this stopped my thorough enjoyment of this film.

As the title suggests the entire movie is designed in shadows and fog. Shot with beautiful black and white photography, Allen and cinematographer Carlo Di Palma create the look and feel of an unnamed East European city as seen in such films as M and Nosferatu. The lighting is set up so that in nearly every shot underlying shadows engulf the scene. In the exteriors, a vicious fog rolls across the night sky obscuring most details. Through the fog bumbles Kleinman (Allen is his typical neurotic schmuck role) trying to find his role in a vigilante mob’s plan to stop a serial killer roaming the streets. From dark night until dawn, Kleinman wanders from place to place meeting a wide variety of curious characters (played by an even more curious group of celebrities), the most endearing of which is a desperate sword swallower (Mia Farrow)who has wandered into a brothel after fleeing her cheating boyfriend/clown (John Malkovich).

It is a little unsettling to watch Allen do his normal schtick while the characters around him are murdered, subjected to racial prejudice, and beaten by the police while discussing such subjects as love, sex, and meaning. There is a subtext involving the plight of the Jews between the World Wars, foreshadowing the Nazis. Yet the gags remain as solid as any Woody Allen film. Amongst the seriousness of his subtext and the films he is paying homage to, Allen finds a way to bring full-bellied laughter. Though his quirky neurosis isn’t as resolutely hilarious as it is in such films as Annie Hall, it is still enough to fill the film with mirth.

The film ends rather abruptly with Kleinman having never learned his role in the plan, nor the killer having been caught. Yet as the credits role we realize the mystery was not so much the reason behind the story as a method of creating it.

American History X (1998)

american history x poster

There are spoilers. Read at your own risk.

It has been many years since I have seen this film. My memory attested it to be an excellent picture that meaningfully discussed issues as heavy as race relations, prejudice, and hatred. Unfortunately, my memory is a little at fault, and upon viewing it this time I found it a bit disappointing. The film sets its sights on the heavens, and while succeeding in many ways, it could not attain such a lofty height. In trying to cover all the basis in such a thorny issue as race relations it cheats a bit in its storytelling. But we’ll cover more of that in a bit.

The plot involves a young, white man named Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) and the tumultuous 24 hours after his release from prison for killing two black men, while they were trying to steal his car. Much of the story is told in a flashbacked black and white. Here we learn that Derek was a Neo-Nazi skinhead leader who had a change of heart after his stint in prison. Post-prison time is being spent trying to keep his brother, Danny (Edward Furlong) from following in his footsteps. A path he is already walking down.

This is a powerful, moving film. Reading the boards on IMDB will attest to lives being changed through watching it. It works best when it shoots for an emotional response, rather than an intellectual one. Scenes such as when Edward Nortan’s skinhead leader rallies the troops to loot a local grocer, the opening scene where we see Norton kill the two aforementioned black men, or a traumatic rape scene in prison, emit a guttural response from its viewers. It is in such scenes that we are rallied into a discourse on the issues presented. Yet when the film gets talky it falls short of its ideals. It presents nothing beyond the general rhetoric you can find just about anywhere. In fact, most of the rhetoric is spewed from the Neo-Nazi skinheads, and this type of discussion can be found every other day on daytime talk shows. There is little in way of discussion from the rational, unprejudiced mind.

There are two powerful performances from Edward Norton and Edward Furlong. At this point Norton was already beginning to take his role as the new Robert DeNiro, who had previously taken his turn as the new Marlon Brando. Let’s hope he escapes the fate of mediocrity that they fell into. Furlong who once made Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Laurence Olivier with such a wooden performance, here has finally made himself worthy of attention. He gives a fine performance here, as a young man struggling with the passionate feelings of youth.

Tackling an issue as heady as racism in America is a worthy, yet difficult cause. It proves to be too much for first-time screenwriter David McKenna and director Tony Kaye. Trying to condense their story into regulation movie time they either skipped over completely or barely touched on some important issues. To give reasons for Derek’s turn as a skinhead we are only allowed one small dinner table conversation with his father who spews some hateful race sentiments. This and his father’s murder at the hands of black addicts in a crackhouse, whom he was trying to save from fire must suffice for an intelligent, middle-class youth to turn into a Nazi. Likewise, his subsequent salvation in prison does give us sufficient reasons for this turn of heart. Yes, the skinheads in prison are hypocrites, and yes the rape scene is brutal enough to turn away from their midst. But, his relationship with his black coworker, Lamont (Guy Torry) is not enough to change the heart of such hatred. Torry gives a fine performance, and does enough to show Derek that all blacks aren’t as vile as the rhetoric made him believe, but are jokes about sex really going to make a skinhead believe in the goodness of the black race?

In searching for a cause behind the Neo-Nazi scene in America the filmmakers seem to point directly towards the intense feelings of anger found in adolescence and the need to fit in with some social group. And rightly, these two issues play powerfully on the minds of many in the skinhead culture. But the issue goes deeper than this, and it is here, again, that this film misses the mark. Just as Derek dismisses issues of poverty, and social position in the plight of the black man this film seems to skim over some of the deeper motivations behind racism.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a powerful, well-made film. There is plenty to chew upon and discuss. It is, in fact, a good film to watch with others and bring to light an important debate. Yet when I watch it I can’t help but think of how it could have been better, how it could have reached the heights it was reaching for.