25th Hour

As Monty says: Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! [...] Fuck Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel-headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass!” YEAH! I would definitely subscribe to that, and not just to this quote, but to many others. But that doesn't change the fact that the overall impression of the film is quite mixed. Spike Lee tries to tell us so much and the result is a disjointed hodgepodge of scenes, some of which don't even seem to belong there. The character of Anna Paquin is completely unnecessary, the scenes with her have no connection with the plot. Likewise, the Ground Zero scene looks like a patch on new clothes. Apparently Lee's painful scars on his soul were still very fresh a year after the attack. And the ending, those minutes overflowing with pathos… ugh, ugh… At times I had the feeling I was watching something really great, then I had the opposite impression. What was great, though, was the performances. All of them. One big two-hour acting concert. Yet the resulting emotional impact was weak. Perhaps also because I can't sympathise with a drug dealer, someone who feeds on the "misery and addiction of others". (25/03/2004)

25th Hour is such a small film, and yet it’s so big! From every minute you can feel the intellectual charge and the director’s commitment and goal. The actors are fantastic, and Barry Pepper in particular is very surprising. The psychological tension in the dialogue could crush an elephant. It’s easy not to give this excellent, distinctive film a full five-star rating, but it’s impossible to reasonably justify why it doesn’t deserve one. (10/04/2003)

Stunning performances by everyone involved, the director's passion for the material, and brilliantly precise dialogues make this film a very unusual and original experience. A barrage of emotions that attacks the viewer from all sides, leaving them no chance to escape. Spike Lee's commitment to the material occasionally leads to a few unnecessary scenes that shatter the overall balance and flow of the plot, but what the hell, it is still strongly above-average filmmaking, and the people behind it definitely have nothing to be ashamed of. A perspective on the modern world, presented in a way that almost nobody can dislike. (13/01/2006)

Spike Lee can have whatever opinions he wants, and you don't have to agree with them, but you have to admit he has a sense for storytelling, for characters, and that he's capable of using forms that fit the story. Even in 25th Hour, he chooses scenes that are sometimes very specific, and almost artistic, but they manage to enhance the impression that the story is creating. A successful film about one human fate. (08/09/2016)

I admire the enthusiasm and courage with which Spike Lee took on such an unassuming premise, and I admire the resulting film, which certainly has something to say, first with the precise and sensitive direction, which brilliantly develops the characters and builds up strongly at the end, and also thanks to the excellent cast led by Norton and Hoffman, whose immense talents are literally palpable in every frame. I needed a bit of time to finally get to grips with the film, but in the end its depth of thought and truly great script enveloped me as strongly as if I were the one about to face seven years in prison hell. And that’s a kind of feeling that won’t easily fade from my memory. (14/11/2012)