The 1998 movie American History X is on my list of some of my favourite dramas to date, because of what it was about and the way that the story was presented. I know I'm not alone in this respect since it was given a high rating on sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, as well as the main actor Edward Norton was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor.

In the movie a high school student named Danny Vinyard is told to write an essay on a book about the struggle of human rights by his teacher. As a joke he writes a paper on Adolf Hitler's "Meine Kampf" since his teacher, Murray is Jewish. Murray tries to get him expelled, but instead, the principal, a black man decides to give him another chance. As a punishment he will take extra history classes called "American History X" under his history teacher, and his first assignment is to write a paper on his older brother Derek. Danny's failure to submit the paper will result in his immediate expulsion from the school. Thus Danny writes the paper and finds out a lot about this brother that he never knew.

One of the reasons why I love this movie so much is that the plot is presented in such a genius way, that in Danny's attempt at writing his paper we learn a lot about Derek, the family and its history, and what situation prompted the massive change that Derek, a former Neo-Nazi leader went through.

I love the fact that much of the movie is made up of Derek's flashbacks, which are essentially filmed in black and white and then the present is filmed in colour. I remember reading some movie reviews where one or two people believed that the black and white flashbacks have something to do with racial tensions, but I don't think there is any evidence to support this.

I also loved the way that the movie portrayed Derek, which I thought was very great because they didn't just portray him as a one-dimensional Neo Nazi skinhead. During the flashbacks of Derek's life before he went to prison, it showed that his father was a man who had racist tendencies, and of course Derek, who respected him, adopted much of them. Afterwards we are able to see how Derek's hatred for blacks and other minorities escalate to a homicidal rage after Derek's father is killed by a black man while doing his job as a firefighter.

I think that one of the scenes that shows Derek's rage on a deeper level is one of those in the beginning where he begins crying to a news reporter about how men like his father, "a decent hardworking man", was being preyed on by "social parasites" of other races.

I think that both the movie and the screenplay that it was adapted from was exceptional in portraying the contrast that existed between when before Derek went to prison and after he was released from prison. For example, there were scenes such as the one where he shoots one of the black men from a rival gang for trying to steal his truck, and others in which he was both looked up to as a leader and a beacon in the white supremacist community.

Then there were scenes from the present where he is more affectionate towards his mother, whereas he was not before.
I think that one of the most important scenes in the movie had to be the rape scene, because even though it was considerably hard to watch, it was the beginning of the end of Derek's rock bottom and what finally prompted him to seek help and try to change.

In the scene, Derek is brutally raped by members of the prison gang, the Aryan Nation. It is this final act of betrayal that prompts Derek to see the lifestyle and these people as nothing more than hypocrisy and propaganda, that might eventually get his younger brother killed.

In the end I believe that this movie was a masterpiece.The acting from Edward Norton was exceptional and it was what helped to put him on the map as a good actor for me. The way how it was filmed was completely genius and picturesque in some scenes; and the way that the story was told was almost perfection.

I would recommend this movie to mature people who love dramas. However, I would not recommend it to a younger audience because it has an extremely graphic rape scene and it also has a lot of profanity and violence.