4 Reasons why "American History X" isn't as good as I remember

4 Reasons why “American History X” isn’t as good as I remember

By: Brian Cotnoir

Isn’t it strange how something you once really liked loses some of its luster over time?  For me, personally, this is most true when it comes to film.  Films I once thought were great when I was kid, now seem to have more plot holes and issues then I remember.  That doesn’t mean I stopped liking some films just because they’re not as good as I remember it just means I look at them in a whole different perspective. My biggest epiphany to this rule came after recently re-watching one of my favorite films “American History X”.  Man, oh, man do I like this movie.  Ever since I saw it for the first time in High School it has become one of my favorite films.  I’ve seen it dozens of times, and it was my favorite film up until a couple of years ago.  I made every person I knew watch this film if they hadn’t seen it, and I was pleased that a majority of the people I showed it too enjoyed it as much as I did. However, that was in High School.  I’m now a 25-year-old adult, and my taste in films has greatly changed.  All though, I still enjoy “American History X”, I will admit that this film has some flaws that I failed to recognize years ago.  So here are my 4 Reasons why “American History X” isn’t as good as I remember.   

1.) You don’t feel bad for any of the victims

     So Derek Vinyard—one of the Main Characters in the film—goes to prison for murdering two black gang members who were trying to steal his car.  He shoots one to death in his driveway, and the other he seriously wounds, before dragging him to the sidewalk and stomping his skull in.  This is one of the most gruesome kills I’ve ever seen in film, and yet I never felt sorry for the guys that Derek killed in the film.  If I caught two guys trying to break into my car I would be absolutely furious...maybe not furious enough to murder them, but I certainly would beat the hell out of them (at least until I felt they had bled enough).  Now, yes, Derek’s actions in the film were still racially motivated and horrible no matter how you look at it, but I still feel the screenwriter for the film David McKenna could have written the victims as more human and innocent, which leads me into my next point…

2.) It glorifies Neo-Nazi’s

Ultimately this film is about Derek’s redemption and his transformation from Neo-Nazi gang leader to upstanding citizen who tries to dissuade his younger brother from following the same path.  However, it does—somewhat—glorify Neo-Nazi’s.  Derek’s younger brother Danny recounts a time at a local basketball court where Derek and his Neo-Nazi gang members had a run-in with the two black men that Derek would later kill.  They get into an argument at the basketball court where they both exchange heated racial slurs.  Derek makes an agreement with one of the men (who always reminded me of Buggin’ Out from Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”) that whoever loses a pick-up basketball game on the court is never allowed to play or show up there ever again.  Derek leads his team to a triumphant come from behind victory, thus making Derek and his gang looks more glorious than ever.  And again, because the men that Derek and his team beat in the game are portrayed as a group Angry Black Thugs, it gives some people who are watching the film that Derek and his crew might be anti-heroes instead of regular villains.

3.) Why wasn’t Dr. Sweeney looking out for Danny, when he was trying to help Derek

Dr. Bob Sweeney was Derek’s High School English Teacher; he is now Danny’s High School Principal—and acting History Teacher.  Shortly after Derek is brutally sexually assaulted in the prison shower his former gang members Derek is visited in the Prison hospital by Dr. Sweeney.  Derek pleads with his former educator and mentor to help him become paroled.  Dr. Sweeney agrees to help Derek, and he informs Derek that his younger brother Danny has heading down a similar path. So Question:  If Dr. Sweeney is helping Derek—an imprisoned Neo-Nazi—get paroled, why doesn’t he help Danny to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to him.  I mean, it’s not like Dr. Sweeney and the Vinyard brothers are total strangers who just met.  They know each other.  Hell, Dr. Sweeney sees Danny practically every day at school.  You can’t tell me that Derek couldn’t have written a note and instructed Dr. Sweeney to give it to Danny.  Now, there’s a part in the film where Danny explains that Derek told his family not to visit him in prison, and if they showed up he wouldn’t see them anyways, but seriously Derek couldn’t make an exception?  He could’ve told his family to come visit him, and that way Derek, Danny, and Dr. Sweeney could have a conference to show Danny what could happen to him if he didn’t leave the Neo-Nazi gang?  Plus—and I’m just speaking out loud as a realist—there was no guarantee that Derek would get paroled for his crimes, so why couldn’t Dr. Sweeney have put just as much effort in to making sure Danny didn’t fall down the same path?  Which brings me to my final point...

4.) Danny doesn’t get to show what he learned, and ergo he learns nothing!

SPOILERS: If you haven’t seen the movie and want to you may want to 

skip this part

Derek has a heart-to-heart conversation with Danny where he tells him the story of what happened after he entered prison.  He tells him of all the hardships and the assaults he endured and how frightened for his life he was in prison.  He tells him how he learned to change his ways—with some help from Dr. Sweeney and a black prisoner he worked with named Lamont—and how he doesn’t want to see his younger brother go through the same hell.  So Derek convinces Danny to change his ways, and the next morning he is to go into school and turn in a paper that Dr. Sweeney assigned to him about what he learned from Derek’s incarceration.  However, Danny doesn’t ever get to show his paper to Dr. Sweeney because he was shot to death in the bathroom by a black gang member that he had a run-in with the day before.  You could possibly argue that it is—somewhat—poetic justice, but yeah, since Danny’s now dead, he has officially learned nothing!  It’s also true that not every film needs to have a happy ending, but after sitting through this entire film where all these people trying to get Danny to change, it almost feels like it was all for nothing.