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25th Hour (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:26
Rotten:8
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: An intelligent and well-acted film despite the usual Spike Lee excesses.
Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Dec 19, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $12,750,480
Synopsis: Spike Lee's bracing adaptation of David Benioff's novel is a vibrant, vital motion picture. Edward Norton plays Monty Brogan, a harmless drug dealer who has 24 hours of freedom before serving a... Spike Lee's bracing adaptation of David Benioff's novel is a vibrant, vital motion picture. Edward Norton plays Monty Brogan, a harmless drug dealer who has 24 hours of freedom before serving a seven-year jail sentence. Nervous, confused, and terrified, Monty turns to his closest friends for support: Frank Slattery (Barry Pepper), a cocky stockbroker who resents Monty for throwing his life away; Jakob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a hapless high school teacher who is attracted to one of his students (Anna Paquin); and Monty's heartbroken father (Brian Cox), who blames himself for Monty's demise. And then there is Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), Monty's beautiful girlfriend, who may or may not be guilty of ratting Monty out to the cops. Monty spends his last day trying to ignore the inevitability of time, but everyone and everything only reminds him of the bleak, unpromising days that lay ahead. With 25TH HOUR, Spike Lee revisits the fiery territory of 1989's DO THE RIGHT THING. Frustrated by Hollywood's cold shoulder toward the tragedy of September 11th, Lee attacks the subject with fervor, resulting in a film that brilliantly captures the mood and atmosphere in New York City in the months following the attack. The film features stellar contributions from composer Terence Blanchard, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and Lee's ensemble cast. [More]
Starring: Edward Norton, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Barry Pepper
Starring: Edward Norton, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Barry Pepper, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rosario Dawson
Director: Spike Lee
Director: Spike Lee
Screenwriter: David Benioff
Producer: Julia Chasman, Tobey Maguire, Jon Kilik, Spike Lee
Composer: Terence Blanchard
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
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Release:
May 20, 2003
Reviews for 25th Hour
I still think that Mr. Lee has come closer than he ever has before to making the great film about New York City that David Thomson hoped from him in a favorable mini-bio in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.
Lee and his cast are so adept at getting us acquainted with Monty and these other people that we wind up feeling like we've known them for years.
It's the usual undisciplined, overextended Spike symphony: more fun than it is any good.
Lee has created that rarity in filmmaking: a movie we need, right now.
25th Hour has a lot of problems, but chief amongst them is the persistent feeling that Lee is just treading water, by trading on past glories and larding in celebrity appearances in the hope of actually selling a few tickets for a change.
The film doesn't reach a climax per se. But it's not conventionally inert, either.
If there was ever a filmmaker in need of someone who could tell him where and when to stop, what to leave in and what to take out, it would be Spike Lee.
It's a long, complex, deeply flawed work -- and also quite possibly Lee's most ambitious and accusatory movie since Do the Right Thing in 1989.
It could have been more taut, could have been harder, but 25th Hour still resonates with power and poetry.
[Lee's] movies still have plenty on their mind. And they're not afraid to talk about it.
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