I feel it is true that the film was mostly an interpersonal reflection on the struggle between characters, but we have to look at the vehicles that those characters have been given to express themselves. Davey was obviously the sensitive one of the lot, and the most caring, although he longed for a gruffer exterior as evidenced in his wanted the H Youth knife and in using in the melee with the Asians. But it is also evident that Davey latter regets his act and actions. But let us look at Russell Crowe, both as the actor and as the character in this film, his gruffness is unrelenting, both in the film and off the screen, and it seems this film was a precursor for what his life and personal being would be like. It is rather eerie in a way to see this early film of Crowe's and to see how he developed in many similar roles, rough and gruff, always ready and willing to engage in a knock-down, drag-out brawl to settle any score rather than to negotiate, as Davey might prefer if given a genuine choice. And that is the Philosophical question I think this film intends to raise, for how much do we willingly just go along with the clique in the hopes of fitting in by standing out and being different, if not downright offensive and anti-establishmentarian? And at what price will any of us who join such a group willingly have the courage to break away, as Davey did when we realize that we no longer share the ideals or goals of its leaders? In a sense therefore, this was a quasi-political film, but a political film in a microcosm, and the two societies were those at war, the Skinheads and the Asians, and they might have well been the US and Al-Qaeda for all that matters. The politics of inclusion and mutual hatred are agreed, and the skinheads were shown as being almost, if not perfectly human in this film, except for the character portrayed by Russell Crowe; he was a true little Nazi to the end. He never lost the idealism or faith that he had for the "party" -- you could tell as much when he read to Gaby from "Mein Kampf" it was as if he sought to inculcate those very words into the core of his being. And that is scary, for the Russell Crowe of today isn't much different.
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