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The 25th Hour
(2002) - A Spike Lee Joint
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Drama / Crime
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(2002) - A Spike Lee Joint
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Drama / Crime
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"Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends."
My first Spike Lee joint was Malcolm X, a movie I was instantly drawn to via the trailer on YouTube. I watched it immediately after over two days, and it became one of my favorite movies. If you weren't here for it, lemme tell you: I checked out a bunch of early Spike Lee movies from his 1983 college thesis, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, all the way to his 1991 film, Jungle Fever. Unfortunately, there was only one movie that matched and beat my favorite of his, and that was Do the Right Thing. Some months later and a few days ago, I checked out Blackkklansman before it gets taken off of YouTube, and now I'm on The 25th Hour, which seems to be another one of his more well-received fictional pieces.
It's pretty apparent from the heavy dialogue and fairly quick pace of all of these events that the movie is character and plot heavy. It's serious about detailing the various characters involved in our protagonist's story / history. There's always personality emitting from the characters, even the minor ones like the cop who arrests Monty. Unfortunately, these other characters are significantly less interesting than Monty, even though their characterization onscreen has a lot of personality and detailing. But they deliver enough of what they need to deliver and more so to make these characters, and Monty's journey, more realistic. I'm reminded of the characterization of many of the lesser important characters in The Godfather, who didn't need to be extremely fleshed-out as they were complimenting Michael. Of course, I'm not entirely sure the subplot involving Jacob's crush on one of his students was necessary.
The plot here is largely a day out on the town with a recollection of events that lead to that day, as well as a couple of things that affect other characters connected to Monty, and how he interacts with them. I am reminded of one of my top 100 movies, Cleo from 5 to 7, which is also a movie dealing with the concept of running out of time and how to deal with it. I'm glad Lee decided to make a movie in that similar vein, relying on realism to handle everything, and there was still plenty of room for art and commentary on life in and out of prison.
The scene that spoke out to me the most, especially where Edward Norton's Fight Club energy goes, is the rant. Spike lee directs the visual narrations of Edward Norton's mirror rant almost like a documentary centering on the world. He's been doing stuff like that since Do the Right Thing which had some found footage moments where characters were interviewed, but that documentarian energy mingled with the emotional narration perfectly. Oh, and this line, spoken by the protagonist, specifically grabbed my attention considering Spike Lee's history with racial themes.
"Slavery ended 137 years ago. MOVE THE **** ON."
I'm surprised that the single most relevant director in America with a racial commentary specialty had the balls to write and direct that for his protagonist. I kinda love this guy for his courage. Eff the political fanatics, right?
Welp, I'm very impressed with this. This is a look at the outside world, and how everything affects everything. The movie bleeds personality and charisma at any point, but makes a point of keeping things simple in its complexity, making it seriously relatable. You learn to love the characters in the long run because of their presence, even if a couple characters need a little more presence. This is mostly what I want to see in a fine movie, but I wouldn't mind around 20 more minutes dedicated to the mafia and to Anna Paquin.
= 96
Spike Lee's Directorial Score (8 Good vs. 1 Bad)
Do the Right Thing: 100
Malcolm X: 100
The 25th Hour: 96
Blackkklansman: 90
She's Gotta Have It: 79
Score: 93 / 5
Spike Lee's position on my Best Directors List raises from #77 to #43 between Clint Eastwood and Chad Stahelski.
It's pretty apparent from the heavy dialogue and fairly quick pace of all of these events that the movie is character and plot heavy. It's serious about detailing the various characters involved in our protagonist's story / history. There's always personality emitting from the characters, even the minor ones like the cop who arrests Monty. Unfortunately, these other characters are significantly less interesting than Monty, even though their characterization onscreen has a lot of personality and detailing. But they deliver enough of what they need to deliver and more so to make these characters, and Monty's journey, more realistic. I'm reminded of the characterization of many of the lesser important characters in The Godfather, who didn't need to be extremely fleshed-out as they were complimenting Michael. Of course, I'm not entirely sure the subplot involving Jacob's crush on one of his students was necessary.
The plot here is largely a day out on the town with a recollection of events that lead to that day, as well as a couple of things that affect other characters connected to Monty, and how he interacts with them. I am reminded of one of my top 100 movies, Cleo from 5 to 7, which is also a movie dealing with the concept of running out of time and how to deal with it. I'm glad Lee decided to make a movie in that similar vein, relying on realism to handle everything, and there was still plenty of room for art and commentary on life in and out of prison.
The scene that spoke out to me the most, especially where Edward Norton's Fight Club energy goes, is the rant. Spike lee directs the visual narrations of Edward Norton's mirror rant almost like a documentary centering on the world. He's been doing stuff like that since Do the Right Thing which had some found footage moments where characters were interviewed, but that documentarian energy mingled with the emotional narration perfectly. Oh, and this line, spoken by the protagonist, specifically grabbed my attention considering Spike Lee's history with racial themes.
"Slavery ended 137 years ago. MOVE THE **** ON."
I'm surprised that the single most relevant director in America with a racial commentary specialty had the balls to write and direct that for his protagonist. I kinda love this guy for his courage. Eff the political fanatics, right?
Welp, I'm very impressed with this. This is a look at the outside world, and how everything affects everything. The movie bleeds personality and charisma at any point, but makes a point of keeping things simple in its complexity, making it seriously relatable. You learn to love the characters in the long run because of their presence, even if a couple characters need a little more presence. This is mostly what I want to see in a fine movie, but I wouldn't mind around 20 more minutes dedicated to the mafia and to Anna Paquin.
= 96
Spike Lee's Directorial Score (8 Good vs. 1 Bad)
Do the Right Thing: 100
Malcolm X: 100
The 25th Hour: 96
Blackkklansman: 90
She's Gotta Have It: 79
Score: 93 / 5
Spike Lee's position on my Best Directors List raises from #77 to #43 between Clint Eastwood and Chad Stahelski.