25th Hour (2003) Movie Information:

25th Hour (2003) Directed by: Spike Lee 25th Hour (2003) Written by: David Benioff 25th Hour (2003) Cast: Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Barry Pepper, Aaron Stanford

25th Hour (2003) U.S. Distributor: Touchstone Pictures 25th Hour (2003) U.K. Distributor: Not available at this time

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25th Hour (2003) Synopsis:

Depicts the last day of freedom for a young man (Norton) before he begins a seven-year jail term for dealing drugs. Prowling the city until dawn with his two close friends, he is forced to re-examine his life and how he got himself into his predicament, which leads to a shocking, disturbing finale.

25th Hour (2003) Movie Review:

‘25th Hour’ is a movie that’ll grab you by the collar, slap you in the face, ruffle your hair, do the whole Paul Vitti “YOU!!!” thing to yer cheeks and throw ya out of the theatre in a daze of amazement and exhaustion.

The 25th Hour isn’t so much about how life sucks, (though the mirror scene may tell you otherwise) but its more about how people stand by and watch a person decline into a cesspool of their own making, and not do anything about it.

The film follows ‘good’ drug dealer Montgomery Brogan (Norton) in his last day as a free man before being sent down for 7 in the county lock up. Monty plans to sort his life out in a couple of hours; he wants to square things with a Russian dealer, find out who ratted him out to the cops, be with his girlfriend and go clubbing with his old mates…(fuck all that other shit, he shoulda just hung out with his girl, I mean she’s Rosario Dawson for Christ’s sake!), but the real shit n’ giggles part of it is; that anyone could’ve set him up, including his girlfriend (slag).

Many people felt that Ed Norton’s character felt detached or icy, but I reckon that’s the whole point folks: Monty’s beginning to reflect on everything he’s done for the past 10 years, and he’s at the “what the fuck have I been doing all my life?” stage, it’s a lot like ‘400 Blows’ but with an adult protagonist.

A guy whose been ducking n’ diving all his life, and even in his last few hours of freedom, tries to piece together some kinda slapdash solution to all his problems, ya want him to find a way out, but the fatalistic undercurrent runs though this film with sledgehammer subtly, you know in the end he can’t win…or can he?

Ed Norton is the next DeNiro, there’s no doubt about it: the man's never made a bad film; I mean even ‘Red Dragon’ was OK. Ed’s character here has some obvious similarities with his role as conniving card-shark Worm, in John Dahl’s underrated ‘Rounders’ mixed up with a little bit of the old Tyler Durden cynicism straight out of ‘Fight Club’, but it doesn’t matter, for even if Norton played the same guy in every movie, he’d still do it with effortless style and believability.

Ed Norton is The Man, and ‘25th Hour’, though not on a par with the likes of ‘Fight Club’ is defiantly up there with ‘American History X’, ‘Rounders’ and ‘Primal Fear’ as another example of how good an actor this guy is (and before you ask, I’m not on the Ed Norton payroll folks…honest).

There’s some solid support from the likes of Anna Paquin, Rosario Dawson, the ever-reliable Brian Cox (playing Ed’s dad), the up and coming Barry Pepper (from ‘The Green Mile’ and err…’Battlefield Earth’—but we won’t talk about that) and man of the moment Phillip Seymour Hoffman (good in ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Flawless’) whose basically playing a grown up version of the role he had in ‘Scent Of A Woman’ way back in 92.

All in all; Spike Lee’s back, though he never really went away, because I for one, loved the intense and energetic ‘Summer Of Sam’ (though I could’ve lived without seeing that many shots of John Leguizamo’s arse!) and whilst Spike will never win over middle America, he’s still one of the best filmmakers out there and I think, deep-down, everyone knows that’s “the triple truth; Ruth”. ‘25th Hour’ is defiantly worth seeing for an involving storyline/ adaptation of the novel, good (surprisingly subtle) directing from Lee and some astoundingly powerful/moody performances from the cast.

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25th Hour (2003) review written by: Kasif Ahmed