Best skinhead movie
2017-08-05
I sat down to watch some tv while I ate my lunch the other day and the skinhead movie Romper Stomper was on so I decided to watch it. Romper Stomper is a 1992 Australian film that starred Russel Crowe. Romper Stomper won a lot of awards at Australias equivalent of the American Oscars and it is the film that made Russell Crowe a star here in Australia and launched him into a Hollywood career. I was about 13 in 1992 when Romper Stomper came out and I remember everyone saying how great it was but I didnt watch it because at that age a movie about skinheads from Melbourne really didnt interest me. The film Boyz n the Hood came out in 1991 and it was my favourite movie and at that time I was very interested in African-American media. I had nothing against Australian movies and back then we did have a decent Australian film industry that did produce at least a few good Australian films a year that would do ok domestically - and we had Australian movie stars. I really liked Australian film The Heartbreak Kid for example when it came out in 1993 and I did like to watch Australian movies but I didnt watch Romper Stomper and it has never been on my to watch list.
I actually came across Romper Stomper while flicking through channels a few months ago and I half an hour of the middle of it mostly because it has a hot chick in it but it looked pretty stupid to me. I remember thinking that it was like a really bad A Clockwork Orange dressed up as a skinhead movie. For example - there is a scene where the skinheads do a home invasion and it reminded me a lot of the home invasion scene in A Clockwork Orange. There is no giant you know what but it seemed like a lame rip off and I changed the channel around about the home invasion scenes. I was just reading the wiki page to see if Romper Stomper won any international awards or was released beyond Australia and I read that a critic makes the A Clockwork Orange connection and so does some kid that beat someone to death in a detention centre that likened himself to Romper Stompers lead character Hando ( Russell Crowe ) and Alex from A Clockwork Orange.
So even though most critics seem to think that Romper Stomper is just superb and what not, I think it sucks and it really is a lame tryhard A Clockwork Orange that is .... insulting - it isnt clever at all. Another thing is that the film was kind of controversial since it contains racial violence and the main character is a violent racist neo-nazi skinhead and after watching the entire film I think people were right to protest its release because while it is not quite The Turner Diaries I do think that there is a certain element in society that the Hando character appeals to and I dont think it is a good idea to give heroes to racists - even fictional ones.
While I was watching Romper Stomper I googled on my phone to see why skinheads shave their heads. Apparently the first skinheads were British and they were punks not neo-nazis. Fair enough but I still do not understand why they shave their heads if they like nazis. If you look at nazis they mostly had very nice neat short haircuts so why would a neo-nazi shave their head? It seems very odd.
Romper Stomper was one of the first big skinhead movies but I was looking at a list of them and there is a British 'television play' called Made in Britain starring Tim Roth that aired ten years before Romper Stomper in 1982. Using a skinhead movie to get an actor over as being brilliant was done in the British and Australian film industries before it was done in USA as far as I can tell. The big American skinhead movie that stands out is American History X and just like with Made in Britain and Romper Stomper which got Tim Roth and Russell Crowe over as brilliant performers - American History X seemed to cement Edward Norton as some brilliant actor. American History X came out in 1998. The critics seem to love a good skinhead performance every bit as much as they love an actor that plays a character that has some kind of mental disorder. Mel Gibson played a mentally disabled handyman that has a relationship with some old woman in the 1979 Australian film Tim you know. Anyway - critics love a skinhead movie. I didnt like American History X or Romper Stomper. I am not going to go out of my way to watch made in Britain.
Another movie that has skinheads in it is Higher Learning which came out in 1995. Higher Learning was directed by John Singleton and was his second follow up to his big hot Boyz n the Hood which like I said was my favourite movie back in the early 90s. The first John Singleton movie after Boyz n the Hood was Poetic Justice which starred Tupac Shakur ( Tupac is also good in Above the Rim ) and Janet Jackson and I really liked it too. So I was interested in seeing Higher Learning since I liked John Singleton as a director. Because of Boyz n the Hood John Singleton was kind of bigtime for a while - bigger than Spike Lee - so he was basically the leading African-American director at the time. I remember thinking Higher Learning was ok when I watched it ( All of the hot chicks would have helped - it has a young Tyra Banks, Kristy Swanson and Jennifer Connelly. ) but remembering it now it was pretty stupid and bordering on being racist really.
John Singleton kind of faded away after Higher Learning - apparently the only thing he did of note after that was direct a Fast and the Furious film which seems funny - but for a while he was the leading African-American director and his film Boyz n the Hood essentially spawned a genre - the African-American projects gang drama. There were countless Boyz n the Hood rip offs in the years after it was released and I watched a lot of them - the best of them was Menace to Society which came out in 1993.
So obviously I am not a big fan of skinhead movies. But one skinhead movie that I kind of liked is the film The Believer which starred a young Ryan Gosling. Like the other skinhead films that I mentioned the critics just love The Believer and I do kind of agree that the movie is ok but like with the other skinhead movies I feel uneasy about any film that acts as a vehicle for any racist propaganda even if the film ties it all up with an appropriate ending and The Believer certainly does that. Unlike the insulting Romper Stomper and American History X - The Believer actually is somewhat of an intelligent film and if I was a censor I would have censored certain parts of The Believer that contain dangerous racist propaganda. But if I did have to name the best skinhead movie it would definitely be The Believer.
The birthright of a skinhead is a couple of sausages at best so nothing has been stolen from the wretches. I dont know any skinheads but I have watched docos and read about these kinds of people and even their leaders are dumb as hell. Hitler would have hated them. The funniest neo-nazi skinheads are the Russian/Eastern European ones. Someone should tell them that their heads are the wrong shape. Skinheads are very stupid people and the fact that the skinhead characters from these skinheads movies are fatally flawed will not deter skinheads from making heroes of these characters which is why I tend to believe that skinhead movies are bad for society and I would be happy for the ones that I have seen to be banned.
So what do you think about skinhead films. Do you agree that they are bad for society? Do you have a favourite skinhead movie?
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