Synopsis:

Twenty-four hours in the life of a young skinhead and his family after he is released from prison.

Directed by Tony Kaye 

Cast:

Opening scene: the beach. The city at night. Three black guys breaking into a car. Danny sees them and tells Derek, who is busy screwing his girlfriend (who looks lovely in combat boots). Derek, adorned in a big swastika tattoo, gets his gun and opens fire, shooting two of them; the third drives away.

At school, Danny Vinyard has written a paper about Hitler as a civil rights hero. The principal, Dr. Bob Sweeney, refuses to give up on Danny. The teacher, Murray, says he has gone too far. Danny is twirling an American flag as he waits. He talks to the principal, who tells him that he is taking an individual class called "American History X." They will meet once a day. His first assignment is to write a paper on Derek, his brother, and Derek's impact on his family.

Derek is one of the Venice Beach skinheads. Sweeney meets with the police to discuss them. He tells the police Derek is the protege of Cameron Alexander, a "Venice Beach landmark" as the promoter of white power. Derek is Alexander's "shining prince." They look at a video of Derek's interview after his father, a fireman, was murdered fighting a fire. He launches into a racist oration.

Danny talks about the gangs coming into Venice Beach. Derek challenges the blacks to a game for permanent possession of the basketball court. Derek steals the ball at game point and dunks the ball for the win.  (This odd scene appears to be left over from a Nike commerical.)

Derek is released after three years in Chino. They pick him up at 7:00 a.m. Derek has let his hair grow out: he isn't a skinhead any longer. Fat Seth comes to visit with his videocamera. Derek is talking to some unidentified person on the phone while Seth interviews Danny about blacks, Jews, and other subversive elements. His sister, Davina, intervenes to tell Seth to get out. Derek comes out of the bedroom. He talks to Danny about the paper. Danny asks if he's been talking to Sweeney. Derek tells him to do what Sweeney tells him. Their mother is smoking and coughing in the bedroom. Seth is starving; he eats a bowl of jellybeans. Derek tells Danny to stay away from Cameron's party.

Derek and Seth go out. Danny starts writing his paper: "American History X." (34:00) It is about Derek's life. In a black and white flashback, Cameron drops Derek off at a skinhead gathering: he is the leader of the disenchanted working class white boys. He gives them a talk on foreign exploitation: illegal immigration as a social ill. So the gang puts on masks and storms Archie's, a local market now run by a Korean and hiring "border jumpers"--illegal Mexicans. They beat and humiliate the workers. Seth steals a big sandwich.

Danny's room is full of Nazi memorabilia. In a flashback, the Jewish teacher, Murray, is talking about the reasons for riots, at a family dinner. Derek is attacking the excuses for crime and riots, discussing the reasons for the Rodney King beating. He is putting down the "liberal nonsense." Davina disagrees with Derek, and he turns violent. He turns on Murray and orders him out of the house. His mother, Doris, gets on him, and he belittles her also. "I am so proud of you, baby," Derek's girlfriend, Stacey, says. Outside, Murray tells Doris goodby. Davina comes after Derek with a baseball bat. He tells her he is sorry; he lost control.

Danny thinks back to the night of the murder: what would have happened if Danny hadn't told Derek about the burglary? Derek has the wounded black guy put his teeth on the curb and than stomps his head (54:30) and spits on him. The police come to arrest him. He is smiling hugely, like this is a revelatory achievement. Danny is watching from the front lawn as they take Derek away. Derek is convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison.

Derek and Seth go to a skinhead party at the beach. "You are a fucking god, man," two young punks say to Derek. He finds his girlfriend. Danny talks to Cameron, who tells him Sweeney is an Uncle Tom. Derek asks Stacey to leave the skinheads with him. He tells her he doesn't want this life any more. He's through with it. "It's bullshit." "You're nuts," she says. "We're ten times stronger than we were."

Cameron's office is adorned with Hitler memorabilia. Derek walks in. "Look who's here. The return of the soldier." Derek sends Danny out. Cameron tells him to chill out. Derek says the joint messed with his mind. Cameron says the gangs are much better organized now, through the Internet. All they need is a leader--Derek. Derek says he is done with it. He calls Cameron a phony, a "chickenhawk" who preys on people. "I am out," Derek says. "And Danny is out, too." He threatens to kill Cameron if he comes around Danny. When Cameron says Danny will come to him, because he is more important to Danny than Derek is, Derek knocks him down. "You're a fucking dead man," Cameron says, and Derek kicks him unconscious. Stacey and the others turn on him when he tries to leave, calling him a nigger. Seth points a gun at him, but Derek takes it away, fires a shot, scares the others, and gets away.

On the street, Danny comes up and attacks him, very angry. They go to a park to talk. Derek says it wasn't supposed to happen that way--it was out of control. "What happened?" Danny asks.

Cut to a black and white flashback. Derek has been in prison two days. He says he didn't think he would make it. A guard is cursing and talking very abusively to him, threatening to "slow fuck" him if he eyeballs him. Derek decides to make his position clear. Going on the yard, he strips off his T-shirt so the blacks can see his swastika tattoos (1:11:00). In the dining hall, he is invited to sit with the skinheads who are similarly decorated.

Derek is assigned to work in the laundry, where his co-worker, a black man named Lamont, tells him he is the most dangerous man in the prison, "because I control the underwear." He tells Derek how to sort underwear--two sizes, medium and large. He asks Derek what he is in for. When Derek doesn't answer, he tells Derek to watch his ass: "In the joint, you the nigger, not me."

A year into prison, life got more complicated. Derek popped off to one of the gang members, who warns him to ease up on the preaching. (The gang is dealing with a Hispanic gang, which doesn't fit into Derek's "race pure" ideology. Practical prison life doesn't fit his rhetoric.)

Doris comes to see Derek in prison. She is worried about Danny's following in Derek's footsteps. She says, "You're not the only one doing time." He hangs up on her. In the laundry, Lamont gets on Derek for being too intense, for working too hard. He makes fun of the KKK, using a sheet to talk about "hating niggers." Derek sees the humor and shows down, leading the black guy to say, "Now we can ignore each other in peace."

On the yard, the skinheads are still dealing with the Hispanics. Derek is frustrated. When he walks away, the skinhead leader, Rasmussen, gives him a Nazi salute, which he doesn't return. In the laundry room, Lamont is telling Derek about the smell of a woman. He simulates a woman on top having sex, making Derek laugh. Derek has never talked to him. Derek starts sitting by himself. In the laundry, Derek is talking to Lamont about the basketball Lakers. He asks Lamont what he did to get here. When Lawrence says it's embarrassing, Derek points out that everyone in prison is embarrassed: "No one got away with anything." Lamont says he got six years for dropping a TV on the foot of a cop after stealing it from a store. On the yard, Derek is playing basketball with a mixed group while the skinheads watch.

Derek is taking a shower (1:25:00). The guard leaves the room while the biggest skinhead rapes Derek and knocks him out. "We going to treat you like a nigger." Sweeney comes to see Derek in the prison hospital, where he has been sewn up after the rape. Sweeney is worried about Danny. They have a serious political discussion. Sweeney says he was once very angry about how black people were treated. He says Derek is angry. He says Derek is not getting the right answers because he's not asking the right question: "Has anything you've done made your life better?" Derek thinks about this and starts to cry. "Help me," he says, "get me out of here." Derek says he wants to get away. Sweeney says, "Running just ain't good enough." (We don't know yet what Sweeney expects him to do.)

Derek goes limping into the dining hall, where the skinheads laugh at him. "Let the niggers have him." In the laundry room, Lamont warns him that he is in danger. Derek says he will be ready for the skinheads next time. Lamont says it's the blacks who will be after him, now that he no longer has the skinheads to protect him. Derek says he knows this, but there is nothing he can do. He expects to be attacked at any time: "I just hoped it would be quick." The blacks never come for him, and he doesn't know why. The last six months he was like a ghost, he says. On the way out, he sees Lamont and tells him he knows it was Lamont who protected him.

Derek tells Danny he was always pissed off, and killing the two black guys did not make him feel any different. It just made him feel more lost. Derek tells Danny he loves him and he wants him to understand. They go home arm in arm.

Danny is working at the computer. He and Derek take down all the Nazi decorations. A car full of black guys drives by the house in the night. Danny says Derek's racist attitude started much earlier than their father's death. Flashback: discussion of Native Son and Sweeney and black quotas between Derek and his father. "It's nigger bullshit," Dennis Vinyard says about what Sweeney is teaching Derek.

While Derek takes a shower, the scene is of two little boys playing on the beach. When Derek comes out of the shower and sees his reflection in the mirror, he covers his swastika tattoo with his hand.

At 5:40 a.m. Danny finishes his paper. He says they are all together again. Derek puts on a tie to dress up for the parole officer and look for a job. Derek walks Danny to school. In a coffee shop, a cop and Sweeney tell Derek that Cameron and Seth got beat up last night. They ask him to talk to the skinheads. He reluctantly agrees to do so, saying they will get him shot by a bunch of white boys. They go on to school. Derek tells Danny a car has been cruising by the house. "I'll see you at home," he says. Danny has a little blonde girlfriend. He goes into a restroom, where the black boy who has surfaced previously in the film shoots him three times without saying a word. Derek hears the shots and runs to the restroom, where Danny is dead. "Oh God, what did I do?" Derek says, holding his brother's body.

Danny's voiceover: "My conclusion, right? Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off. It's just not worth it." Closes with an uncredited quote over a scene of the ocean at the beach (1:58:00). 

Commentary: