25thHour
is the reason why movies are made. It digs to the very bottom of
your gut to pull up unexpected emotions and then tickles them as
if they were keys on a piano making the most beautiful and
moving music. If you walk out of this movie and have not learned
something about yourself or at least tried to look at things a
little bit differently, you probably were asleep.
Spike Lee
has taken a great screenplay and made a movie that doubles as
his own tribute to New York City. He might as well come out and
say that New York City is the best city on the planet, yet he
doesn’t because I feel he has more tact. He hasn’t made this
tribute to sell tickets, but he’s done it because he believes in
it.
Monty
(Norton) has decided to go straight a hair too late. Police
knock on his door with a warrant, interrupting a luscious bubble
bath with his girlfriend Naturelle (Dawson). The cops know he
has drugs and they know exactly where to find them. Monty is
going to jail and he has twenty-four hours to say his goodbyes
in one last all-out party. He invites Naturelle and his two
childhood buddies Francis and Jacob (Pepper and Hoffman). An
uninvited, but welcome student of Jacob’s also arrives in the
form of jailbait on overdrive, Mary (Paquin). The friends use
the evening to explore where they are in their lives and how
they’ve grown to be such different people from a similar
childhood. They must also contemplate on who could’ve ratted on
Monty.
I have
long respected Edward Norton and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as some
of the finest actors in Hollywood, and here I only gained more
respect for them. Norton plays a man torn up by his past and
dreading his future while trying to wring every ounce of joy out
of the present that he can. Hoffman is sincere as a lonely high
school teacher who is tempted by the scantily clad Mary both
inside and out of the classroom. Anna Paquin makes hearts beat a
little faster and induces more than one bead of sweat on the
brows of the men in the audience. Barry Pepper is fantastic as a
conniving Wall Street trader who spends so much time hiding his
true emotions only to later dump them out on the table for
everyone to see.
Writer
David Beniof has written a superb script. The “Fuck You” speech,
delivered brilliantly by Norton, was edgy and witty. In fact, it
was one of the highlights of the movie for me. It slammed all of
the happy New York images that had been tossed around only to
reveal a true picture of what it is like to live in the city
that goes beyond all of the memorials and tributes that we can
come up with.
New
Yorkers will most likely relate to this film. They will be able
to understand some of what the characters have experienced and
what it is like to be a part of this amazing community. Every
audience member will get a glimpse into what it might be like to
live in New York after such a tragedy. The movie stands on its
own without the New York tribute, but putting the two together
makes the 25thHour a truly amazing piece of
art and a slice of history.
