25th Hour (2002)
February 19, 2019 9:02 AM - Subscribe
The story of the last twenty-four hours Monty Brogan (Norton) gets to spend with his two best friends and his girlfriend before he goes to prison for seven years for pushing heroin.
In "25th Hour" Spike Lee takes the story of a convicted drug dealer's last day of freedom and expands it into a meditation on New York and America in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
Starring Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox.
In "25th Hour" Spike Lee takes the story of a convicted drug dealer's last day of freedom and expands it into a meditation on New York and America in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.
Starring Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox.
Lee is a pretty inconsistent filmmaker but when he's good he's one of the one of the greatest. This is probably Norton's best roll and at least in Lee's top 5.
posted by octothorpe at 1:27 PM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 1:27 PM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is just devastating.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 9:57 AM on February 20, 2019
posted by DrAstroZoom at 9:57 AM on February 20, 2019
I quite enjoyed the movie. It gave me the feeling that if you knew a middle-class, private school drug dealer and his friends, they'd be exactly like this. I also think the way the movie treats the upcoming prison sentence as a nightmare-- the music used to create the portentous mood got to be a little much for me-- but also as part of the job, is very good. "I got greedy," Monty says at one point; he'd been getting ready to retire when he was caught, or at least he now thinks so.
Looking at the Salon review, I think the criticism of Monty's fixation on prison rape is fair, but only up to a point. It seems realistic that a character would fixate on a weird assortment of things in this situation. In the book Monty bitterly characterizes his 35-year-old, emerging from prison self as a punk with prison-issue dentures. And then he goads the Barry Pepper character into breaking his teeth, hurrying up the process in a way. Benioff and Lee have me convinced that of course someone in this position will think like that, and that it's almost proper for them to.
posted by BibiRose at 4:08 PM on February 24, 2019
Looking at the Salon review, I think the criticism of Monty's fixation on prison rape is fair, but only up to a point. It seems realistic that a character would fixate on a weird assortment of things in this situation. In the book Monty bitterly characterizes his 35-year-old, emerging from prison self as a punk with prison-issue dentures. And then he goads the Barry Pepper character into breaking his teeth, hurrying up the process in a way. Benioff and Lee have me convinced that of course someone in this position will think like that, and that it's almost proper for them to.
posted by BibiRose at 4:08 PM on February 24, 2019
Huh, I didn't realize that the screenplay (and novel) for this was written by David Benioff, the showrunner for Game of Thrones.
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 PM on February 24, 2019
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 PM on February 24, 2019
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posted by Carillon at 9:03 AM on February 19, 2019