25th Hour (2002) May 15, 2008
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Spike Lee
Known for his films about the heart of New York, 25th Hour may not be the biggest leap for director Spike Lee. Yet what he brings to the project in his passion for the city both aides and hurts this redemption drama.
The story follows drug dealer Monty Brogan in his final 24 hours before the start of a seven-year jail sentence. With one night left to assess his life, he meets with his father, and then goes out on the town alongside his girlfriend Naturelle, and his two oldest friends, Frank and Jacob. With questions about loyalties and trust still in the air, Monty tries to get things straight and prepare those he cares about for his leaving.
With a screenplay based on his own book of the same name, writer David Benioff notes that this was an easier novel to adapt just because it was so short. However, the 135-minute running time may tell you different, and it’s a duration that is never quite earned by such a linear, single-note tale. Benioff’s writing is sufficiently engaging though, and he draws his characters with a mixture of emotional subtlety and dispositional overstatement (the frustrated teacher, the cocky stock broker, the distant father) that keeps them real enough to buy, yet interesting enough to watch. He builds a story that is fairly simple and it really only contains one sub-story (the infatuation between Jacob and his student) that doesn’t do anything for the film as a whole.
Edward Norton adds gravitas in the central role, holding the nervous but calm disposition of Monty somewhere between the strength he displayed in American History X [review] and the anxious energy of Fight Club. It contains themes from both of those movies too, but never quite lives up to either of them due to a failing sense of drama that drags a little with time. Even over such a short 24 hour period, there is way too much of what turns out to be very little content. A great Norton may come as no surprise, but what 25th Hour also benefits from are well-pitched performances from both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper, playing Monty’s best (maybe only) friends. The cast list is rounded out by Rosario Dawson as Monty’s girlfriend, and Brian Cox as his ever-loving, but troubled father. The cast are well chosen and never put a foot wrong, even when the film itself tries to derail them.
The other notable strength of this movie is the score by Terence Blanchard, which is fantastic, with solemn pieces that possess the intended mood of the picture perfectly. It may be a downbeat story about a slightly miserable character, but if there’s the sense of the intended redemption to be found anywhere, it’s in the music. Conveying an air of questioning and poise, it accompanies the film better than any soundtrack could, and adds a significant single tone to a movie that is desperately trying to be both a dramatic work of fiction, and a modern day real-life dissection.
Which brings us to the main detraction in 25th Hour. I guess it was a matter of bad timing, but to make a film in New York in 2002 must have been very difficult for a director so well associated with the city. This would be one of the first major films shot in the area since the 9/11 disaster and people wanted to know what filmmakers, Lee especially, were going to say about it. In response, Lee did not forcibly make a film about 9/11 (this is not World Trade Center [review]), yet he attempts to infuse the subject into this film with lots of gusto - to little actual effect. There are sporadic references and reminders, but they feel overly forced, like an unwanted amendment to a film that doesn’t have space to deal with it fittingly. The blue light ‘towers’ across the New York skyline make a nice title sequence visual, but from there on in it’s all secondary mentions: a conversation in front of a Ground Zero view window, and a dubbed (I assume) reference to Osama Bin Laden that suggests he is an integral part of the New York stratosphere. It’s a nice try, but without a story that allows for discussion, it holds little more than passing reference to real life.
If the film tells us anything, it’s that even the most well-intentioned responses to an event in recent history can be detrimental if they are badly placed. Spike Lee undoubtedly has something he wants to say in this film that the self-contained storyline doesn’t even start to allow him to explore. There’s one very memorable scene where Edward Norton squares up to his reflection and denounces every type of inhabitant within New York - social types, job roles, racial minorities, no one is safe from his unfounded wrath. But when 9/11 is suddenly brought up it takes you out of the moment. Detached from Monty’s self hatred, the disaster holds too much connotation to stand next to the “Korean grocers” or the “Chelsea boys” in terms of boiling the blood. Luckily the film manages to stay on track: “No”, says Monty to his reflection, “You had it all, and you threw it away”. That’s the real story in 25th Hour. Unhampered, it might have been better.
Comments»
I just want to briefly compliment you on being an excellent writer of sentences. Having said that, I almost never agree with your opinions and I think you’re off here, underestimating the film to a large degree.
It’s about responsibility and possibility, and the need to face reality without losing sight of the “mights” and “coulds.” Those things, for me, are key to placing 9/11 as a companion and not a distraction to the film. It’s the most grown-up, adult movie about what happened to New York City (not necessarily the country as a whole) that’s been made and, most likely, ever will be made.
The other thing not to discount is that it’s probably the only major film to really tackle the aftershocks of 9/11 on New York with any degree of realism. This is the guerrilla snapshot that didn’t require artificial recreation of what the city was like afterwards.
Thanks for your comment Clydefro, you make some excellent points and I thank you for reading despite our differing opinions - although maybe that’s part of the appeal? (The same reason I continue to plague myself with Christopher Tookey’s reviews in the Daily Mail.)
When I first saw this shortly after its DVD release, I enjoyed it a lot more. Watching it recently, the 9/11 stuff just jarred - now maybe that has something to do with coverage-overkill in the passing years, but even the way it is portrayed always seems like an afterthought. The window over Ground Zero, for example, gets ignored for a while and then is given a laborious mention at the end of the scene, just so you take note of the fact that it’s there.
If the responsibility and possibility themes you so rightly mention are supposed to sit alongside the 9/11 material, then maybe the images would have been enough. The audience could still extract the meaning from there rather than the awkwardly sporadic references that pop up in the dialogue. Plus, my favourite part of this film has always been Monty’s admission of his own downfall - the fact he acknowledges fault in himself. The rest of it (even the disappointingly unresolved student / teacher stuff with Hoffman’s character), I can take or leave.
Your post has certainly got me thinking about this again - maybe I’ll re-assess it in another five years!