Movie Review: 25th Hour
In the hands of anyone but legendary prolific director Spike Lee, 25th hour – based on the novel of the same name, which the film is truthfully based on – could well have been as interesting as watching someone fill storage space up while singing “I love to watch paint dry” in the monotone fashion of someone who has recently banged their head really quite hard. But alas, as anyone who has ever seen a Spike Lee film will attest to, that was never going to happen, and the result is a stunning film; both violently emotional and absolutely full of passion, commitment to its cause and stunning cinematography.
Telling the story of new yorker Monty, who, in just 24 short hours will go away to do a seven year stretch in prison and leave his beloved city behind him, the film follows Monty (Edward Norton) and his two best friends who he’s known forever (worthy performances by Barry Pepper and Philip Seymour Hoffman).While they wonder how he’ll survive in prison, Monty takes one last walk with the ghosts of his past, wondering all the time if it was his girlfriend who told the police about the drugs in their sofa.
Is it a thriller? Not really. And classifying it as a drama seems almost insulting, considering the depth that the characters complex characteristics plunges to. So, in a way – and Lee admits this, as does the author of the novel on the DVD commentary – the film is without classification, and without a box to fit into. And that’s certainly one of the things that is appealing, as rather than being a simple film conveying one direct message, you get the feeling by the end that you have been subjected to many opinions and many truths, all valid, all utterly crucial for the story to survive and inhabit the intriguing space it so often does.
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