The 25th Hour: DVD & Movie Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

The new Spike Lee movie, "The 25th Hour," follows the life and hard times of Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a troubled, 31-year-old man saying his goodbyes to those close to him the day before he leaves for a long stint in the big house.

There, thanks to a drug charge, he'll spend the next seven years regretting his past, questioning his future and, perhaps most of all, wishing he weren't so slight of build or, for that matter, so easy on the eyes.

Based on screenwriter David Benioff's book, this is Lee's 14th movie and it's terrific, the first film to use the terrorist attacks on New York City as a backdrop and, in the end, as a metaphor.

Indeed, if "The 25th Hour" is about the transitions taking place in Monty's life, then it's also just as much about a city in transition.

Loose but not structureless, the film weaves in and out of Monty's relationships, flashing back and forward through time as time itself closes in.

It introduces us to Monty's Irish father, James (Brian Cox), who used his son's drug money to free himself of debt; his beautiful girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), who knew, but never questioned, how Monty could afford to treat her so well; and his two childhood friends Frank (Barry Pepper) and Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), neither of whom interfered with Monty's drug running, not even when he was pushing heroin to children in neighborhood playgrounds.

As with so many of Lee's films, "The 25th Hour" joins the rest in thumbing its nose at Hollywood gloss.

At its core, it's about responsibility - responsibility to ourselves and responsibility for others. If it lacks the engine of a formal plot, it moves briskly thanks to the underlying mystery that somebody here may have turned Monty in to the police.

That mystery drives the film, but so does Monty's barely contained rage, which gives the movie its brooding undercurrent, all of which comes to a boiling point when he launches into an unforgettable rant about everything he hates about New York City, including himself.

We've seen this before in Lee's "Do the Right Thing," but this time out, with the city still pulling itself together, there's an uncomfortable rawness only matched when Monty's father drives him to prison.

Here, in a brilliant voice-over by Cox, what Monty's life could become if he were to run from the law today, steal away into another part of the country and start life anew, romantically is laid out for him. "Give me the word and we'll take a left turn," his father says. "Give me the word and we'll go. We'll drive - we'll keep driving, taking that road as far as it will take us. And then I'll go."

But will Monty go? Rising to the top of his powers as a director, Lee offers a final twist as Monty is faced with whether he at long last will do the right thing.

Grade: A