The Reel Critic

Author: Matthew Clark



Spike Lee's latest joint, "25th Hour," is the first film I have seen set in post-9/11 New York. There is an American flag blowing or hanging in every scene, reminding the viewer that America and events bigger than ourselves will continue. It is a tragic movie about the 24 hours before Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) goes to jail to serve a seven-year drug-dealing sentence.

The title, "25th Hour," is a revealing one. There are only 24 hours in a day. There is no 25th hour. The 25th hour is the time that might have been, that could have been if only there were another hour in the day. It isn't those seven years Monty will spend in jail - it is what his life could have been out of jail during those seven years. We will never know what would have filled that time but can only speculate about what might have been.

Throughout the movie we see fate and destiny struggling against choice and chance. Monty rescues a broken, bloodied dog from traffic, naming him Doyle of Doyle's Law - "Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Does Monty have to go to jail? Could it have been avoided? "This life all came so close to never happening," Monty's father (Brian Cox) narrates as he drives Monty to jail. Are the choices we make in our lives destined or decided? In the end, does Monty need to be as broken as Doyle was in the beginning?

Lee has done a masterful job stitching the characters together into a web that ripples through time and space no matter where it is touched. The movie moves fluidly from scene to scene, introducing Monty's buddies - an arrogant Wall Street investor, Francis Xavier Slaughtery (Berry Pepper) and a quietly fumbling English teacher, Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman). We see the complexities of friendship and love, trust and loyalty in one climactic scene under an old archway. Slaughtery's anguish and Monty's taunts are unavoidably real as Monty coaxes his friend into "doing him one last favor." The bruises and blood will save him in jail, meaning that Monty must appear somewhat roughed up in order to escape the beatings of other inmates. The thuds of punches and Doyle's barking are muted as Slaughtery pummels Monty's face. All that is left is the sound of birds flying away. Where are they going? What are they taking with them? Will they be back?

"25th Hour" is a film about second chances - about starting over. It makes me think of T. S. Eliot's "Waste Land" - "These fragments I have shored against my ruins." The feeling is pervasive throughout the dull blue-gray filtered light of the city. Jacob and Francis discuss Monty's fate while looking over the ruins of Ground Zero. How will they piece their fractured lives back together after Monty is gone? Later, Monty unleashes a scathing tirade addressed to every ethnic and socially distinct group in the city, hating everyone in the city and blaming them for all that is wicked and wrong with the world. Eventually, staring into the mirror, hating everything he has become and everything he has thrown away, Monty understands that it is he who must change. He has to start over. He has to begin anew with what he has left.

I am left optimistic by Spike Lee's portrayal of the post-9/11 world. Wounds heal, cities will rebuild, and it all can happen in the 24 hours a day we are given.