We throw around aphorisms like "Seize the Day" and "Live
every day as if it's your last" without emotionally grasping the
significance of this shrewd advice. In "25th Hour," Spike Lee,
using a script by David Benioff from Benioff's novel, explores the
concept through the eyes of a man who is not literally living out
his final day on the planet, but who in some ways shares a
terminally ill person's angst. New York resident Monty Brogan
(Edward Norton) is due to check into an upstate prison in twenty-
four hours to serve a seven-year term for possession of drugs with
intent to sell. Looking at himself realistically as a skinny, good-
looking white guy, he knows what's in store for him in the brig
every time the lights in the penitentiary go out.
This is the sort of drama that a run-of-the-mill Hollywood director
with a big budget would treat as a melodrama, crammed with
adrenalin-pumping music, explosions, and shoot-outs with the
police who would be hot on the trail of a runaway felon. Though
we have no idea why the authorities would allow such a fellow
post-sentencing to be on the loose and consider escape, Spike
Lee is far more interested in examining character, particularly the
relationships that Monty has developed and is now sadly giving
up, affording him good reason to feel that he has thrown his youth
away. In short this is not a prison drama as such but rather an
attractive young person's belated coming to terms with himself,
sadly considering "if only," and wondering whether he has any real
options short of serving his time.
The opening of a story finds Monty walking around near a New
York pier with his Ukranian-born friend Kostya (Tony Siragusa),
razzing the large man for his apparent mental thickness. Monty
demonstrates early on that despite his drug dealing which dates
back to his selling weed to high-school students, he's a decent
guy who takes in a pit bull mix that had been thrown from a
window and left for dead. In this initial scene Spike Lee points up
that Monty could have led a good, moral life but challenges us in
the audience to know when a scene is a flashback and when it is
taking place during the single, last day of freedom in the man's
life.
Meeting with his dad, James Brogan(Brian Cox), Monty must
fend off suggestions that he escape to a small town out West and
in a smashing surreal scene we watch how this option would play
out as Monty grows old with his wife Naturelle (Rosario Dawson)
and enjoys the company of a bunch of kids to whom he reveals
his big secret only when they have grown up. Monty enjoys his
loving girlfriend Naturelle Riviera (Dawson), whom he had met in a
playground when the woman was just eighteen; and the supportive
company of his good friends, prep school English teacher Jacob
Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and hotshot investment banker
Francis Xavier Slaughtery (Barry Pepper).
Lee's repeated flashbacks, which continue to blend in with
Monty's final day of freedom, explore the varied lives of Monty's
circle, and it is here that scripter David Benioff's sharp dialog
effectively mixes humor with pathos. The nerdy Jacob has not
come to terms with what he considers a wasted life, his job as a
high-school teacher failing to fulfill him while he harbors a passion
for a 17-year-old student, Mary D'Annuzio (Anna Paquin) that
Humbert Humbert would understand only too well. By contrast
Francis is energized by a high-pressure job that allows him to
spend up to $100 million for his clients in his investment house.
While he has his eye out for the women, he can appreciate the
temptations of a young body, feelings that obsess his friend
Jacob.
"25th Hour" does have some suspense. We wonder whether
Monty will take advantage of his dad's advice to flee the city by
driving west and taking on a new identity, but we probably know
that Monty has come to terms with his past and looks to redeem
his life by taking the punishment meted out by the draconian
Rockefeller laws. Not the stuttering schizoid he played in Gregory
Hoblit's "Primal Fear," not the tough hombre of "American History
X" or the adorable romantic in Woody Allen's "Everybody Says I
Love You," a vulnerable but strong Edward Norton anchors the
compelling story while Spike Lee adds cinematic variety through
surreal imagery and seamless retreats to the past and future.
David Thomson writes in his "The New Biographical Dictionary
of Film" that Spike Lee is "is capable of a great film about New
York." One can only say to that major film critic, "Here you go."
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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