In his now-signature style, which combines realism with bold, Brechtian breaks with the linear narrative, Lee continually punctuates the action onscreen with surreal shots of people moving dreamily through space or, as with the film's penultimate sequence, highly pitched representations of Monty's inner life. It's a "hill of beans" moment, one that recalls Bogart's line in "Casablanca" and reminds viewers of the disproportionate scale of Monty's suffering. Later, Jakob and Frank engage in a petty argument in front of Frank's living room window, which overlooks Ground Zero. (It's like the montage of invectives from "Do the Right Thing" recapitulated by Eminem and Tom Wolfe.) Monty's visit to the bathroom of his father's saloon ends with him yelling at himself in the mirror in an anti-New York rant that turns into an aria of enraged self-hatred. Then, just when the audience is lulled into thinking "25th Hour" is another quirky, observant little movie about the way people behave, Lee delivers a scene of breathtaking intensity. Through its series of confrontations and encounters, "25th Hour" examines the moral implications of Monty's plight, but often viewers find themselves listening in on banal barstool exchanges between young men - about girls, about money, about sex and careers. Frank, a stockbroker, is more outright hostile: Although he wants to be there for Monty on his last free night, he admits that he thinks his friend deserves what's in store for him. Jakob, who now teaches at the prep school the three friends attended, has been too wrapped up in his own fears and obsessions - currently having to do with a flirtatious student played by Anna Paquin - to confront Monty on what he does for a living. During brief flashbacks the audience sees that he conducted his business in the pseudo-friendly, low-key way that allows dealers and users to believe they're not hurting anybody, least of all themselves.Īlso in denial are Monty's beautiful girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), his father, James (Brian Cox), and his best friends, Jakob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Frank (Barry Pepper). Edward Norton delivers an unshowy but brilliantly calibrated performance as Monty, who has slipped into dealing presumably as the path of least resistance. Like "Gangs of New York," to which it makes a perfect historical bookend, "25th Hour" swings for the fences and just witnessing Lee's assurance and courage in making it is as rewarding as the always absorbing results.īased on David Benioff's novel of the same name and adapted for the screen by the author, "25th Hour" pulls off the extraordinary feat of making moviegoers identify with a morally corrupt protagonist without asking them to like him. Among its many artistic achievements, "25th Hour" arrives as the "Rome, Open City" of post-9/11 New York, at once a neorealist, small-scale drama in the tradition of Rossellini and De Sica and a movie that soars into dizzying visual heights. Surrounded by the street reliquaries of flags and Xeroxed photographs that stood not just for death and suffering but for heroism and survival, Monty feels that he has betrayed not only those he loves and his own promise, but an entire city whose ruins surround him as a collective rebuke. 11, 2001 - a city knocked back on its heels, in deep mourning and shock. Suffusing the entire drama, both as a backdrop and as the warp and weft of Monty's guilt, is the film's setting of New York immediately following the events of Sept. With supreme control and restraint - two qualities the director hasn't always exhibited even in his finest work up to now - Lee delves deeply into Monty's shame and self-loathing, his relationships with his father, friends and lover, and the existential dilemma of a man whose once bright future is now a bleak smudge in his mind. Such is the premise of "25th Hour," a film that turns out to be much more than the sum of its parts. Spike Lee's "25th Hour" follows Monty through this day-in-the-life, one tinged with almost tragic fatalism: He is convinced he won't survive in prison, that young, handsome men like him are walking targets for sexual predators, and his terror leads him to consider suicide or running away forever from the life that he's built. Recently pinched by the Drug Enforcement Administration, he now faces a seven-year stretch in jail in Upstate New York, and the day before he's to leave for prison, he reevaluates his life by visiting old Manhattan haunts, connecting with family and friends and speculating as to who set him up with the DEA.
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