25th Hour Review

25th Hour is a crime drama written by David Benioff, who also wrote the novel the film is based on, and directed by Spike Lee. The film was critically acclaimed upon its release and is considered to be one of Spike Lee's best movies, second to Do the Right Thing.



Story

Monty (Edward Norton), a drug dealer, is arrested by the DEA for possession. He now has only a few hours to spend time with his friends and girlfriend before he's sent away for seven long years.



That's pretty much the plot of the whole film. Sure, there are other things going on throughout the day and night the movie focuses on, but in the end what we have here is a Candide-esq character study, with Monty looking back on his life and all the decisions that brought him to where he is now. It's a movie about excepting the consequences for what you do, as demonstrated not only in Monty's prison sentence, but also in the actions of his friend Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a high school teacher infatuated with one of his students (Anna Paquin). I know that a lot of other critics have said that the movie is one giant metaphor for America's response to 9/11, but I don't really get that. Sure, it's set only a few days after the event, but I don't really get in what way it's telling the story of America's greatest tragedy. Maybe it's an age thing; I was only five years old when 9/11 happened and I don't remember anything about it. Maybe if I'd been at a more mature age I could've gotten more of a sense of what the movie was trying to do, but that's just me.



I have very mixed feelings on the screenplay. On the one hand, this is some of the best dialogue I've seen in awhile. It's very natural sounding, like this is the exact conversation these characters would have. It's not even stylized, that much; it's just normal people talking with normal sounding words and it makes everything feel very real. On the other hand the film has almost no visual story telling. It has a few good shots that let the audience know what the next plot point is or what a character is thinking or feeling, but if you put the film on mute from start to finish, you'd be really confused and miss half of the experience. I don't understand how writing like this became the norm in a visual medium such as filmmaking; where you can tell an entire story with just one edit why tell it in a thousand words?



The characters all have something in them that everybody can relate to. Monty fears what his life will be like in prison and when he gets out. Jacob is tempted by something that he struggles to say no to. Naturelle, Monty's girlfriend (Rosario Dawson), is exasperated and preparing herself for a life without her boyfriend. Monty's other friend Frank (Barry Pepper) is having trouble reconciling Monty's drug dealing with his feelings of personal friendship. These relatable aspects, combined with outright unlikable personality traits make the characters feel three dimensional.



Technical

The cinematography is ok, but not worth noting except for a few genuinely inspired shots.



The lighting for the film is mostly realistic, but still works as a storytelling tool. When the film cuts to a flashback of the night Monty was arrested the lighting goes from harsh and blown out to softer and warm, signifying that not only have we changed setting, but also mood. The rest of the film, as I mentioned, is shot in harsh, bright light to the point where it almost blows out the frame. This is mostly used to symbolize Monty's mood: resigned to his fate, stagnant in his attempts to do anything about it and just genuinely depressed by his own poor decisions.



The editing is an aspect of the film that I think is intentional, but I can't put my finger on why. There are several scenes in the film that are shot with very quick cuts to different angles, sometimes showing us the exact same action we just saw from a different angle, kind of like what they do in anime if an especially hard punch is thrown. However, this is not anime and often times the actions that they decide to repeat seem entirely arbitrary. According to some research I did, it's apparently supposed to be a replication of a technique created by Sergei Eisenstein, meant to increase the intensity of a certain action by showing it from different angles. However, none of the actions that get repeated are anything as dramatic or epic as the throwing of the plate in Battleship Potempkin. Hell, they're not even epic at all, so the fact they're getting this treatment is very strange.



The music is weirdly over the top. For what is essentially a crime drama the film has these really over blown tracks that sound like they'd be better suited to Troy or Game of Thrones than something set in New York City with such a small, personal scope.



The acting is good all around; Norton gives a nuanced, energized performance as usual, Rosario Dawson brings a quiet strength to Naturelle and Brian Cox does great, emotional work as Monty's father. The one performance that really sticks out for me is Philip Seymour Hoffman, mostly because I can't tell if its good or not. The first thing I ever saw Hoffman in was Catching Fire and I always see the same quiet dignity he had in that film in every one of his performances. Even in this film where he's playing a pathetic, borderline pedophile I still just see him as a composed presence. I can say, however, that he's a really good physical actor. His motions have a lot of nuance that add subtle complexities to his character, like how he'll awkwardly stand by to wait for his turn to hug a friend as they arrive.



Summary: 25th Hour is good, but it's no life changer. Everything in it is basically functional, but I never got a big emotional reaction from any of it. I recommend seeing it at least once, but I'm not sure I'd ever see it again.