25th Hour

The so-called “war on drugs� that’s been fought by the United States in the last couple of decades is a subject that would take several sizeable books to chronicle and explore, but suffice to say that they’re not even close to winning. Powered by hysteria and none-too-subtle propaganda, the perception held by many in that country is that they’ll never be safe until every drug dealer and user has been safely locked away where they can’t dirty up the streets. Out of site, out of mind, so to speak (and meanwhile, the fact that millions of people are walking around armed to the teeth doesn’t seem to faze people so much). To try and counter what was being seen by the public as an ever-spiralling drug trade, some US states put draconian laws into play to try to maximise jail time even for first-offence drug dealers and users, regardless of whether or not they were violent criminals. In New York, the notorious Rockefeller Laws have resulted in an astonishing number of low-level offenders spending serious time in jail; one human rights organisation points out that since 1980, nearly 125,000 children have had to endure at least one parent being sent to prison on drug charges. Jails are overcrowded, lives are irretrievably destroyed, and yet the drug trade continues unabated.

Interrogation in the 21st century: the entire ROOM is the light bulb.

All of this serves as the background for 25th Hour, an unusually subtle piece of social commentary from director Spike Lee. The film introduces us to Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a man who looks, as the film opens, as though he’s resigned to a terrible fate. And indeed he is: Monty, the son of an Irish-American ex-fireman (Brian Cox), has been dealing on the street for a good deal of time, accumulating a decent amount of money to support himself and his Puerto Rican girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson). But his good fortune came to an end when his apartment was raided by the DEA; as we meet him, he has been sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security prison, and this is his last day of freedom. As he wanders the streets of a post-September-11 New York, Monty thinks back to how he got himself into such an inescapable situation. But all the regret in the world can’t save him from his fate; he’s terrified not about what will become of his life, but what will happen to him in a prison system where it’s accepted he will almost certainly be raped on a regular basis. So on this last day Monty tries to get a few final things done. He has a Russian drug kingpin to confront, the mystery of who ratted him out to solve, and a very big favour to ask of two friends, schoolteacher Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and hyperactive merchant banker Frank (Barry Pepper). Frank is in no doubt that Monty deserves what he gets, angrily spouting anti-drug cliché as his justification. Jacob, though, has his own issue to deal with - a 17 year-old student named Mary (Anna Paquin), who he’s developed a crush on against the advice of everyone around him.

That’s the tip of the story iceberg; what has been woven here by Lee and screenwriter David Benioff (who adapts his own novel) is an elegiac, multi-layered story of regret, missed opportunity, anger and self-loathing. What’s missing is any sense of hope - none of the characters here care much about the future, because in their own various ways they simply have no future to look towards. The film’s moral stance is deliberately vague; while Monty is most certainly guilty of dealing drugs (and quite profitably, too), he is in no way a violent or cruel man - quite the opposite, in fact, as is illustrated in the film’s opening scene where he rescues a dog that he finds lying, tortured and near death, in the street. He cares about Naturelle deeply and is not abusive; he also cares deeply for his father and his friends. But with his comfortable life effectively over, he has to decide what to do. Running is an option. So is suicide. Both hold some appeal in comparison to what he expects to find in jail.

"Just as well this is a widescreen film, or I'd be drinking alone..."

If 25th Hour plays out like the last hours of a condemned man, that’s undoubtedly intentional. Lee’s decision to not just set the film in post-attack New York, but also to give the aftermath of that tragedy a prominent place in the story, adds a tangible layer of despair to the experience. Loaded with atmosphere and economical with words, Lee’s approach to the story accepts the tragedy of the situation but doesn’t once try to dictate right or wrong to the audience; it’s left up to the individual to decide. The closing sequence, though, does make an unsubtle statement about what is ultimately lost in the cycle of crime and state retribution; it’s just a point raised, however, and not an answer.

The cast is stunning from top to bottom, with Norton in characteristic fine form as Monty, Hoffman and Pepper three-dimensional and believable as the two friends, and a terrific supporting cast making the most of their comparatively limited screen time. Anna Paquin is particularly good in the risky role of the flirtatious student, while Rosario Dawson owns every one of the too-few scenes she’s in.

If there’s one criticism to be made, it’s about Lee’s New York-centric approach to the film. Much of the central emotion here comes from the mood of post-attack New York, something most outside that city will never fully grasp. And the key final scene in the film hinges upon the audience recognising a particular New York landmark; many won’t, as writer Benioff notes in his commentary, and consequently could go away with a completely different outcome in mind. No matter; 25th Hour is a film that invites interpretation by its audience, and what you get out of it will depend entirely on what experiences, opinions and morals you bring with you.

Monty makes sure he's not accidentally turned up at a Blue Light Disco.

Beautifully photographed by Rodrigo Prieto (who shot Amores Perros and, more recently, 8 Mile), 25th Hour looks stunning on DVD, transferred in its theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio (and of course 16:9 enhanced). There’s been a fair amount of digital post-processing done to the images throughout, and as a result some scenes won’t fit everyone’s idea of a state-of-the-art picture. Harsh contrasts, extreme film grain and over-saturated colour abound throughout, all of it intentional. Needless to say, it’s a challenging film to compress successfully for DVD, but Buena Vista’s disc authors have done a superb job - no compression problems are visible anywhere here. The sharp, detailed image is refreshingly free of edge enhancement, and colours are accurate and solid throughout (see the nightclub scene for evidence of that!)

The film is stored on a dual-layered disc at a decently high bitrate; the layer change just before the half way mark is somewhat clumsily placed, but doesn’t cause any major disruption to the flow of the film.

An extremely nice Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is on offer here, one with an immense amount of dynamic range and superb fidelity. With dialogue front and centre, the other speakers are used for the astonishing orchestral score by Terence Blanchard (lusciously mixed in full 5.1 surround) and the various effects, which sometimes make very attention-grabbing use of the surrounds. A superb soundtrack which can’t be faulted, this is a great example of intelligent use of the medium.

Mary (Anna Paquin) has a moment of rare clarity.

Accessed from the slick but subtle animated menus, the extras are informative and mildly diverting without quite reaching the must-explore level.

First up are two audio commentaries, one each for director Spike Lee and writer David Benioff. Of the two, Benioff’s is the livelier; Lee is noted for speaking haltingly and quietly on his commentaries, and this one’s no exception. Both offer plenty of interesting insight into the production of the film and its origins, but neither makes for an especially gripping listen. The choice of participants, though, can’t be faulted, and nor can the decision by the disc’s authors to encode each commentary as a Dolby 1.0 stream, keeping valuable bandwidth for the video and the full-bitrate 5.1 audio. The 22 minute featurette Evolution of an American Filmmaker sounds important but is, in fact, nothing of the sort. It’s a lengthy puff piece put together to advertise 25th Hour by way of summing up Spike Lee’s career to date. But such a long and fascinating career needs much more than 13 minutes of screen time to cover, and you’ll likely come out of this one feeling unsatisfied. There’s a great Spike Lee retrospective out there somewhere, but this certainly ain’t it.

Half a dozen deleted scenes are offered, with very poor picture quality - the timecodes on screen suggest this was taken from a rough edit tape. Nothing especially gripping can be found here - certainly nothing that belongs in the final cut of the film - but the inclusion of deleted scenes is welcome on any disc, and it’s good to have these here. Finally, a five and a half minute featurette shows us views of Ground Zero - the site where the World Trade Center towers once stood is a plot element in the film. Music from the score plays (in mono, sadly) as a backdrop for this montage.

Jacob, Naturelle and Frank prepare to farewell Monty.

Spike Lee seems incapable of making a boring film, and equally as unwilling to do what people might expect him to in terms of choice of projects and in the way he realises them. 25th Hour is a superb, multi-faceted drama which has something to say, but doesn’t need to get out the sledgehammer in order to say it. A sad and poetic story that’s stunningly made and intelligently played, it’s a very notable entry in Lee’s impressive (and diverse) filmography.