25th Hour Reviews

Engaging but violent drama. Not for kids.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Finds beauty in the silver linings and embodies the notion that we're stronger than we usually realize we can be.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

An under-rated gem, 25th Hour is a powerful story about how the decisions you make in your life, and who you make them with, can ultimately lead to your downfall.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Lee successfully, seamlessly marries his famously inventive visual style with more introspective material.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Lee builds Monty's story of tortured introspection and his final surprising, desperate act before incarceration through boldly candid conversations and flashbacks.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Perhaps Lee's most consistently compelling work since Clockers.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

One of the more entertaining and thought-provoking Spike Lee Joints in a long while.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

'Spike Lee's love of New York, unlike Woody Allen's, has always been more tough than tender.'

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

Lee's best, most cohesive and most passionate film since Do the Right Thing.

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25th Hour stands out as a remarkably atmospheric and elegiac American film, every scene heavy with the stillness of tragedy.'

In its own strange way [the film is] uplifting, a tribute to people's ability to face the unthinkable, and, if not triumph, at least persevere.

| Original Score: 4/5

25th Hour is both Spike Lee's condemnation of and valentine to what we've done before, but also a strangely inspiring reminder of how beautiful the mere opportunity to choose can be.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

...a bit scattershot...but director Lee manages to pull it all together into a tense, gripping, suspenseful, and highly dramatic movie experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

Smart and restrained; a fine production from a mature filmmaker.

Full Review | Original Score: 84/100

Spike Lee's most compelling and resonant picture in years.

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A moving tribute to resilience in the face of ruination.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Superbly acted, as you would expect, it's also rich in moral nuance. Doing the right thing is not as simple in his films as it once was.

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The movie is electric.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Some fine supporting performances and powerful scenes but this is a disappointment from Lee.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

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...begins with great intentions but somewhere in the first thirty or so minutes of the film it becomes disconnected and weightless.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

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