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This Month's Featured Equipment Reviews |
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Past DVD Hardware / Software News |
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25th Hour |
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DVD Mystery-Suspense
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Written by Abbie Bernstein
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Tuesday, 20 May 2003 |
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title:
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25th Hour |
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studio:
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Touchstone Home Entertainment |
| MPAA rating: |
R |
| starring: |
Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin |
| release year: |
2002 |
| film rating: |
Three-and-a-Half Stars |
| sound/picture: |
Four Stars |
| reviewed by: |
Abbie Bernstein |
“25th Hour” is a character study drama set in the crime genre. David
Benioff’s screenplay, based on his novel, has juicy roles for the
actors and strong character arcs, and director Spike Lee immerses us in
the authentic New York environments. The movie is consistently
interesting, but it suffers from its own weight. The filmmakers are so
keenly aware that they’re saying something about the human condition
that “25th Hour” starts to feel portentous. Its structure is solid but
lacks either a feel of inevitability or any true surprise – we can
appreciate the craftsmanship while feeling a bit removed from it.
The film opens with the sounds of a dog being beaten. Enter Monty
Brogan (Edward Norton), a confident N.Y. drug dealer who pulls over
and, against the arguments of his hulking co-dealer Kostya (Tony
Siragusa), rescues the poor, growling animal from where it’s been
dumped. Flash-forward a few years. Monty sits on a bench, dog Doyle at
his feet, contemplating his fate. We learn that Monty has been busted
and is on his last 24 hours of freedom before facing seven years in
prison. Monty’s ex-fireman/bar owner father (Brian Cox) tries to be
supportive while wrestling with his own devastation. Childhood best
friends Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an unhappy English teacher
suffering from a guilty crush on a 17-year-old student (Anna Paquin),
and Frank (Barry Pepper), a cocky stocks trader, spar with one another
while planning to give Monty a good last night on the town. Monty’s
live-in girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson) tries to connect with
Monty, despite his imposed self-distance. And Monty’s gangster
erstwhile suppliers want a word with him …
Benioff’s screenplay has the kind of rich, stagey character
interactions that are common to David Mamet scripts, with friends who
know how to lacerate one another in ways that enemies wouldn’t dream of
doing. The dilemmas are all well-illustrated, though there’s something
weirdly by the numbers about many of Monty’s transitions. He is given
an intriguing third-act choice that has ramifications for others in his
life, but it is so cinematically emphasized – in a section of Chapter
16, all human sounds drain from the track, leaving only Central Park
birdsong and brush rustles as the action continues – that we feel as
though the filmmakers fear we might not be able to experience the
emotion of the scene if left to our own devices.
There is also a curious and continual reference to the 9/11 tragedy and
the loss of the World Trade Center towers, with Frank ensconced in an
apartment that directly overlooks Ground Zero. One can thoroughly
sympathize with director Lee’s wish to acknowledge the loss and his
sentiments that other movies should using CGI to pretend the towers
were never there at all and still be puzzled by the movie’s emphasis on
this particular outrage. There doesn’t seem to be any metaphorical
connection between Monty’s predicament and the bombings, and in fact,
on reflection, it’s hard to see how any of the characters’ situations
would be any different if 9/11 hadn’t happened, so that eventually the
references wind up having the opposite effect of the one apparently
intended – we can’t help but feel that, apart from adding a bit of
existential depression to everybody’s already blue moods, the
horrendous loss of life is irrelevant to the story we’re being told.
Monty also has a xenophobic rant about most of the population of New
York into a mirror that efficiently underscores his self-loathing, but
also uses vitriol in what a lot of people will see as a dubious (not to
mention really unpleasant) bid for verisimilitude.
Even so, there’s much to admire in the way Norton does a fine job as
the worried, monumentally conflicted Monty. Hoffman is a standout as a
“nice guy” who’s a guilt-ridden wreck but genuinely wants to do the
right thing, and Pepper, Dawson, Cox, Paquin and Siragula are all aces
as well.
The widescreen presentation on the disc is very handsome, with
cinematographer Roberto Prieto utilizing subdued hues for the present
and glowing, skip-bleached-type treatments for flashbacks and flights
of theory. Sound is good but unspectacular, with occasional excellent
discrete effects, like individual lines in Monty’s angry diatribe
issuing from different speakers, mains and rears. Chapter 11 has a
vivid burst of music as characters enter a nightclub, and Chapter 13
places us somewhere specific in relation to the deejay booth, with
record-scratch issuing from the rears while dialogue and synth music
come from center and mains. The soundtrack has a good selection of
cuts, including Bruce Springsteen’s “The Fuse” over the end titles.
Extras on the DVD include an audio commentary track by director Lee,
who praises his collaborators but tends to fall silent for long
stretches, and a livelier, separate commentary by writer Benioff, who
reveals that the novel was originally optioned by Tobey Maguire, who
wanted to play Monty himself until “Spider-Man” intervened. There are
six good deleted scenes, a documentary that combines making-of material
on “25th Hour” with a retrospective on Lee’s career – with comments
from Martin Scorsese, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Sydney Lumet and
Ossie Davis, among others – and a tribute to the fallen Towers,
consisting primarily of Terence Blanchard’s spare, mournful score
playing over footage of workers in the mostly cleared-out crater.
“25th Hour” is intelligent and involving to a point, but it’s a little
too aware of its own potential profundity for it to hit is as hard as
it could if it wasn’t trying so hard to mean so much.
| more details |
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sound format:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, THX-Certified; French Dolby Digital |
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aspect ratio(s):
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2.35:1 |
| special features: |
Audio
Commentary by Director Spike Lee; Audio Commentary by Writer David
Benioff; “The Evolution of an American Filmmaker” Featurette; Six
Deleted Scenes; Ground Zero Tribute; English Closed-Captioning |
| comments: |
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| reference system |
| DVD player: |
Kenwood DV-403 |
| receiver: |
Kenwood VR-407 |
| main speakers: |
Paradigm Atom |
| center speaker: |
Paradigm CC-170 |
| rear speakers: |
Paradigm ADP-70 |
| subwoofer: |
Paradigm PDR-10 |
| monitor: |
27-inch Toshiba |
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