Rating: 
Summary: One of the best movies I have seen.
Review: I am not a big fan of Spike Lee and I do not usually write reviews for movies. But after watching this film, I was inspired to do so. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Edward Norton plays his role to perfection. His supporting cast does an excellent job at bringing out his exceptional acting skills. The few montage sequences in the film were humerous as well as though-provoking. This is one of those movies that will stay in your mind long after you view it. I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good drama. I have a new found respect for Spike Lee.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully crafted and captivating from start to finish
Review: From the opening sequence to the very end, this film kept my interest. An excellent cast led by Edward Norton included Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a perverted high school English teacher, his brother Barry Pepper, a Wall Street hothead, Rosario Dawson, a sympothizing girlfriend, Brian Cox, a proud father, and Anna Paquin, a seductive teenage English student. All of the characters in this film were round and believable. They were not all very likeable, but they weren't all supposed to be. This is a real film that chronicles that last 24 hours of a busted drug-dealer's life before being sent to prison for 7 years. Spike Lee's clout was not absent in this film, as it almost was in the disgusting film, "Summer of Sam." This is not at all a kid movie, and would certainly offend viewers who are uncomfortable with foul language. Its R rating reflects strong language (including a monologue with extreme amounts of profanity), some violence, and sexual innuendo.
Rating: 
Summary: bad
Review: badly made , badly acted , bad language , bad pacing problems , and bad plot. what do you get? an bad movie. just plain bad.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Kept Secret this year
Review: This movie was fantastic. You'd never imagined feeling sorry for a drug dealer, but Ed Norton does such an excellent job. The whole cast was amazing. It is really impossible to describe this movie. It is one you just have to see. The music in the movie was also amazing. Definatley a must see movie.tiff
Rating: 
Summary: The epiphany of prison
Review: Spike Lee is finally clear in this film and his American History X film comes into perpsective. We have to watch both if we want to understand each one. Here we have a male character who is going to go to prison and we study his fears and the way he prepares himself for the experience. He gets himself banged up by a friend so that he will not - maybe - be used as a spem pot by some bully in the prison. But his fears are so strong that he imagines, incited to do so by his own father, what could happen if he escaped and disappeared in some far away little city in some desert. But he does not have the courage to escape. Or he has the courage, or rather the sense of duty, to go to prison and maybe be regenerated, since he has only been in his whole life nothing but a dealer. Prison is thus shown as a brutal and ruthless regeneration for delinquents, and this one is white, just like in American History X, hence we do come to the conclusion that only white people can be regenerated by a long sojourn in prison, just like in American History X, though in this case the parallel with blacks is not given, and we do remember that blacks could only be saved within the prison walls and not outside. This film is also about New York, after September 11. Three male characters are shown. A Jewish teacher who wants to be progressive and refuses the money of his rich family and lives on the miserable salary of a school teacher (think of American History X). His only problem is not to yield to the sexual attraction he feels in himself for those promiscuous young girls who are his students. The second character is a broker on the financial market. His life is a bargain, a game, a constant bet on the future, just like keeping his apartment right next to ground zero is a bet on his belief that there will be no more attacks. And finally the main hero who is a drug dealer, for a russian gang, betrayed by a ukrainian member of the gang, who was supposed to protect him, and the way he unravels in such a situation and yet sticks to his moral code : you shall not speak and betray your associates. So he goes to prison for the sake of his own honor code, for the sake of his own self-respect : thou shall not spit on the hand that has fed you, even if the fodder was poisonous. Better die of the poison than betray the poison provider. The only positive element that comes into the picture is the fact that New Yorkers are shown as being and said to be able to resist any hardship because they have been brought in a human jungle. This is to be taken in perspective with september 11 and this states that no one, no event will ever destroy New York and the stamina and strength of New Yorkers. But if you get into this film, be sure to watch carefully because the flashbacks are not in black and white this time, hence they merge with the main present story line and we can at times wonder where we are. This navigation in the past and the present is typical of Spike Lee and gives the film a subliminal dimension that reduces the crime - drug dealing - to nothing but an unimportant detail in what is a lot more important aspect of life : personal righteousness and loyalty. The hero is not loyal to his providers or father or friends but only to himself : his self-loyalty is supposed to be the only way to construct his personal, emotional, intellectual and even social sanity. And thus he needs to go to prison to be freed of his immoral sin (drug-dealing) and any escape from this epiphanic punishment would lead to insanity.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: I must say I left the movie theatre in awe. Although the film very efficiently and entertainingly drives us through Monty's last night out: his regrests , his moral shortcomings, his fear of spending seven years in prision, nothing could prepare me for that beautiful, uplifting last part of the movie, where you are bombarded by images of a life that can be, suddenly. His friends, critical of Monty, imperfect themselves but rich characters anyway gives the whole last night a tone of debate and self-examination. The background of Sep 11, New York, the racial diversity of the city adds to the repentment of Monty, a hateful drug dealer which comes to terms with all of that throught the night. As a movie lover, I must tell you I left the theater enchanted by the fresh view of life this film builds to offer, I even saw a bit of Capra in it. Please don't let it pass you by...
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and moving - the best picture I've seen in 2003
Review: I was literally stunned by this movie and strongly recommend it. While others are put off by its pacing and "plotlessness", I was engrossed in the emotional honesty the film delivered from virtually all of the characters. And the end, a father's dream for his son, left me in tears. This is the work of a master film maker.
Rating:
Summary: The world should NEVER AGAIN let Spike Lee direct!!!
Review: Has Spike Lee sunk to an all-new low? Other people's reviews wouldn't make you think so. "Art" this and "art" that. If you've seen "Do The Right Thing" and "Clockers", congrads, because you never have to see a Spike Lee flick (joint) again. He rubbed it in our faces with "Summer Of Sam" and he's doing it again. Here's the scenario: you're watching "25th Hour" and you're buying it, but all of a sudden he throws in something about Sept 11 or a race issue that (believe it or not) doesn't belong in any old movie. I know what your saying and I agree, the acting is good (if you took out the Josie and the Pussycats drummer), but the characters leave the audience feeling indifferent about subjects that any high schooler with a camcorder could capture better. Mr. Lee's female characters end up more one-dimensional than Bond girls. Oh, but I forgot, it's an art film. I haven't wasted more than 2 hrs of my time. Go ahead and watch "25th Hour" and see how powerful Spike is. I dare you.
Rating:
Summary: Greed, lust and distrust, set against the aftermath of 9/11
Review: Spike Lee's "The 25 Hour" is the story of a New York drug dealer's long last night of freedom before a seven-year prison stint. It is a sad movie for a bunch of reasons, but most notably for the way the Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) wastes his final night in a deafening, public night club, with childhood friends he no longer really knows, and a girlfriend he no longer trusts. By the following morning, Monty knows some things that might have changed that final night for the better, but then Monty's whole life has played out that way, learning things after the fact. It's why he's going to prison. Edward Norton is entrenched in this kind of character -- a smart, quick-talking brooder, aware of his risks, but willing to roll the dice. But much like Norton's torn characters of "Fight Club" and "American History X," Monty senses something lacking about his masculinity; it isn't the length of time in jail that worries him, it's the first night. He rubs his pretty boy face, pretty certain he'll be raped or killed. His Russian mobster boss tells him to beat someone up, and bad, or else. "The only thing I learned about prison," the mobster says, "is that I don't like prison." Monty gathers two old friends, one a Jewish literature teacher, Jacob, (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the other a hopped-up stockbroker, Francis, (Barry Pepper) for a night of reconciliation, celebration. The girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), comes along, although she and Monty aren't speaking much, since Monty believes it was Naturelle who turned him into the DEA. Did she? The movie argues for both possibilities and then reveals the answer. Dawson is not a great actor, but she finds her mark with Naturelle, a young, Latin beauty who loves Monty but keeps her distance; she's sad and kind, but she's also the hottest thing on the block, and not particularly subject to loyalty laws once Monty's gone. The friends fight their own demons. Jacob, the English teacher, is more intrigued by a student (Anna Paquin) who joins Monty's party at the club. Stockbroker Francis fights a movie-long battle on whether to lust after Naturelle, or berate her. There is also Monty's father (Brian Cox), a semi-reformed alcoholic bartender who blames his poor example for his son's fate. "The 25th Hour" is, then, a jack-of-all-trades lament, set against the World Trade Center cleanup of 9/11, which Lee displays prominently throughout the film. It creates a deliberate pall over the film, as does the loud, melodramatic score that plays during many scenes. The terrorist attacks play a central role in a lengthy rant that Norton delivers straight to the camera -- the centerpiece of the film, it's a angry treatise on the disgust of New York that also doubles as its charms; like most New Yorkers, Monty has a tough love for his city, but it's a deep love nonetheless. Bottle this scene up and you've got a perfect movie. Lee wanders a bit -- the screenplay isn't quite good enough to justify such emphasis on Jacob's storyline -- but "The 25th Hour" ends on a provocative note that explores a choice that has been in front of Monty all along. It's farfetched, intentionally so, and the kind of wish we'd all like to have when we're faced with steep consequence. The scene only works if we think Monty, through his remorse, has earned the right to dream it. And Norton sells it, in one of his best performances.
Rating:
Summary: An experience, like a painting that makes you think.
Review: I think this film was a work of art, like a painting that's a little different and makes you think when you look at it. I felt as though I lived through it with each one of the characters. And it stayed with me after I walked out of the theater. I am looking forward to experiencing it again on DVD.
|
