Watch: 25th Hour

At least once a week, I'm going to look at what I think of as undervalued classics. In some cases, the work in question simply isn't old enough to have gained true classic status. Other cases will be works that, for whatever reason, have been passed over, both by mainstream viewership and the tiny-but-crucial critical audience. I'm gonna do my best to figure out why these works haven't been properly recognized, while acknowledging that maybe I'm just wrong and everyone else is right.

First up is Spike Lee's 25th Hour.


I'll lead off by saying that 25th Hour is a confused movie. It follows Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) during his last 24 hours of freedom before serving a seven-year prison sentence for selling drugs. His inner turmoil and fear is palpable throughout and Norton gives a fantastic, subdued performance as a man struggling to remain stoic even as his facade is cracking. Like Monty himself, the movie is disjointed and fractured at times, with venom bubbling just beneath the surface. The Ground Zero scene, the ethnic slur scene (echoing Do the Right Thing), the undertones of sexual anxiety throughout the movie - on the surface, this movie is a mess.

But it's a beautiful mess. Released 15 months after the 9/11 attacks, 25th Hour feels like an unfiltered snapshot of New York City in the wake of the destruction. In the film's most famous scene, Jake (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Frank (Barry Pepper) argue about Monty's impending prison sentence with that gaping desolation behind them. Other than a brief exchange (Jake says the air is bad, Frank says fuck moving and fuck the terrorists) at the beginning of the conversation, the presence of the image remains silently devastating. Spike Lee gets huge credit for being the first filmmaker willing to use such a backdrop and integrate the aftermath of terror into a New York story in such a skillful way.  The anxious, ominous tone of the film is established in this scene and follows us through steaks and whiskey and half-naked teenage girls.

Ultimately, it's this claustrophobic undercurrent of fear and loss that keeps this movie seething and churning towards its violent conclusion. By the time we get through the face-pulping climax, (spoiler in the mouseover text) we're emotionally exhausted and desperate for relief. Spike denies us a happy ending. In 25th Hour, cold logic steers the plot without mercy. Convicted drug dealers go to prison, postcolonial imperialism draws terrorism and everyone is accountable.  The closest we get to a happy ending is Monty's fantasy dénouement, which is just that - a fantasy.  It's a salve on a wound of a movie, but it's a scar we earned together.