Beware, there will be spoilers in this review
The 25th Hour, 2002, Spike Lee
A review by Ronan O'Beirne
After several months of waiting, this afternoon I finally saw Spike Lee's movie
(or "joint", rather), The 25th Hour, and I must say: having seen Do the
right Thing, and now The 25th Hour aswell, I have come to the conclusion that
Spike Lee is a fantastic director.
The 25th Hour features three excellent main performances, given to us by Edward
Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and, the person who, in my opinion, gave the
best performance of the 3, Barry Pepper, who deserved an Oscar nomination for
his role as Wall Street hardass Frank Slaughtery.
How The 25th Hour was shut out from Oscar nominations is beyond me. It deserved
nominations for at least the following categories: Best Supporting Actor
(Barry Pepper), Best Film Editing, and Best Score (Terence Blanchard). But, this
is a review, not an Oscar rant, so let's get on with it.
The 25th Hour tells the story of Monty Brogan, a 31-year old drug king of
Manhattan who is caught be the DEA and has 24 hour until he goes to prison for
seven years of his life. The film follows the last hours of Brogan's life
leading up until when he starts doing time in the big house. During the 24
hours, Brogan decides to live his life to the absolute fullest, partying with
his friends, and, as in many movies, talk to his father.
Those who call The 25th Hour slow must be out of their minds. The pacing was
near perfect, in my opinion. I never came close to nodding off and I was always
wondering what Monty would do next, and, of course, wondering what would happen
on the 25th hour. I will admit that one or two times I found my eyes wandering
around the room, but that could always just be attributed to my somewhat short
attention span.
As in Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee presents us with a story about
characters, enhanced with great camerawork and some of the best editing from
last year. The 3 characters that the story focuses on are: Monty Brogan, who I
alerady explained. Another is High School English Teacher Jacob Lenski, who is a
shy adult who doesn't seem to be able to get a girlfriend. The last character is
Frank Slaughtery, who is your typical Wall Street trader: doesn't take shit from
nobody and likes to run the show. But he does, indeed, have a soft side, shown
to us near the end, when Brogan tries to convince him to "mess him up" so that
he won't be raped when he arrives in prison.
About 15 minutes or so into the movie, Monty walks out of his place, and finds
his Ukranian friend, Kostya, who claims that he should not trust Naturelle
(Monty's girlfriend), hinting that she was the one who tipped off the DEA and
got him into the whole mess. Norton keeps this in mind, until he's in a club and
is called to the office of a higher man in the drug business, who reveals that
it was in fact Kostya who tipped off the DEA to Monty. Monty is given a gun to
shoot and kill Kostya, but his better judgment grabs a hold of him, and he
places the gun on the table and tells the drug lord to do whatever he pleases to
do with Kostya.
The main story, set in New York (and at times in Slaughtery's apartment, which
overlooks Ground Zero), clearly has parralels(sp?) to the tragedy of 9/11. Osama
bin Laden himself is mentioned, once in passing, by Slaughtery, talking to
Lenski about the air quality down at Ground Zero, and another time in the single
best scene of the whole movie, the "Fuck You" scene.
When he is at his father's bar, Monty goes to the washroom, and sees that
someone has written the words "Fuck You" in the corner of the mirror. Monty
proceeds to go on a rant, saying "Fuck You" to every possible type, nationality
and race of person in New York City, from black people, to women, to Jesus
Christ, before finally accepting that he should not be blaming them, he should
be saying "Fuck You" to himself, for having a good life, then blowing it all by
selling drugs. This scene proves that Edward Norton is one of the best actors
working today. I don't think I blinked a single time during Brogan's rant.
Norton truly takes the audience into Brogan's mind for those brief 10 minutes
and offers us an insight into
The last 10 or so minutes of 25th Hour are by far some of the best from last
year. Monty's father offers to take him to prison, so that he will know where to
go for future visits. On the way there, Monty's father gives a fantastic and
moving speech about how he won't take Monty to prison. They will instead go out
West, see the country. He'll drop Monty off in some little town, where Monty
will find a good paying job, and change his identity, then after a while get
back together with Naturelle, raise a family, then, years and years later, with
his children and grandchildren, tell them the truth. The truth about the drugs.
The truth about how had it not have been for his father, none of them would be
there, listening to the story, which wouldn't exist. I damn near cried at this
part. That'll make Spike's "making me cry" record 2 for 2.
The 25th Hour is one of last year's best, and truly deserves all the praise it
gets.
****/****- Masterpiece.