American History X Critic Reviews

A series of well-drawn sketches and powerful scenes, in search of an organizing principle.Read the full review

This is the sort of incendiary role a lot of actors would kill for, yet the shock of Norton's performance isn't its showboat flamboyance. It's that he makes this sadistic junior sociopath rueful and intelligent.Read the full review

For all its surface verisimilitude and for all its focus on a problem that couldn't be more current, this film can't manage to feel more than sporadically real.Read the full review

May be flawed, but it's not easily forgotten.Read the full review

As a visit to a world and a way of life most of us will never experience, American History X is vivid, and it feels honest. At the very least, it's not typical.Read the full review

It's a testament to Norton's utter immersion in the role that he can even halfway connect the dots between this fundamentally sweet, brainy kid and the magnetic, white trash monster who'll haunt our minds long after the movie's liberal pieties fade into static.Read the full review

An inflated yet gut-slugging film.Read the full review

There may be much to like about his movie, but it's all been done before to more challenging degrees of moral ambiguity. That's a pretty fatal flaw.Read the full review

While this movie is sometimes overbaked, it is the first major studio release in a while to engross wall-to-wall.Read the full review