I got to see this for the first time last night and declare it a fucking great movie. Good to see that Tony Kaye is actually glad he never got his name removed now.

Also another standout performance from Edward Norton, sitting alongside Fight Club and 25th Hour. For me he's like DeNiro: somehow I never truly forget I'm watching him playing a character instead of seeing the character but at the same time the performance is amazingly spellbinding.

I'd like to see him on stage at some point.

Still, back to the film: is it me or is it massively 'even handed' for the subject? I mean, as a liberal I take away from it the message (naturally) that racism isn't a good thing, that hate and fear will destroy you and that it's easy and stupid to just label whole sections of society for all kinds of reasons.

But if I were a neo-Nazi fuck I'd probably see the film as validating my own right-wing viewpoint, especially as we get no inkling of whether Norton's character stays true to his new beliefs or regresses at the end of film.

I think I'm going to say this makes the film much stronger but I guess there's an argument for saying it's slightly negligent or reckless for this.