25th Hour

Say what you like about Spike Lee's occasional pretentiousness - the man has guts. The majority of film producers and TV network executives, in the event of being presented with footage taken before 9-11, tend to digitally remove the World Trade Centre from the New York skyline. This in itself is not a problem, but they make no reference to it in anything they do, and this in turn comes across as an attempt to digitally clean up history, erase the incident...not out of respect for the dead, as such, but rather out of fear of repercussions from an angry public. I refer to the vaguely Big Brother-esque approach of Wing Commander: "When you're dead, you never existed."

25th Hour, on the other hand, chooses to set itself in the centre of Manhattan in the aftermath of September 11th. Although it is some months later, imagery provides telling punctuation marks to the film's various set pieces, and serves to give a constant reminder of what has occurred. Edward Norton plays Monty, a small-time - but well-off - narcotics dealer who has been given a seven-year prison sentence for his crimes. Monty spends his few remaining hours as a free man sorting out a few things with his father (the ever-wonderful Brian Cox) and finding a suitable home for his dog before hanging out in a nightclub. Meanwhile, Monty's old school friends accompany him for the ride: Barry Pepper, a high-flying stockbroker, discusses his place on the New York bachelor's eligibility scale before waxing lyrical about Monty's wasted life, while high school teacher Phillip Seymour-Hoffman wrestles with the ethics of having an affair with one of his students.

The prison sentence itself hangs in the air like the end of the world: it carries a stark inevitability that things will never be the same for Monty after he gets out, and feels not unlike the coming of the meteorite in Deep Impact. In keeping with this slightly apocalyptic theme, references to September 11th litter the film: the opening credits linger around the columns of light that soared up the skyline as a memorial, "Wanted" posters of Osama bin Laden hang on the doors of a Wall Street stock exchange, and one of the characters has an apartment overlooking Ground Zero. As we are presented with a flashback scene in which Monty's apartment is raided and his life of dealing is uncovered by narcotics police, it becomes clear that this is his own personal twin tower collapse: the solitary event that can reshape lives and alter perspective.

It's not without its flaws. The flashback scenes, although necessary, are occasionally tiresome and ponderous. Lee's heavily stylised approach cannot always avoid lapsing into preaching - Norton stands at the washroom mirror and delivers a devastating tirade at everything he hates about the city he calls his home, but the moralistic punch line to the scene leaves you feeling vaguely unsatisfied. The ending, while undoubtedly well-meant and far from predictable, is longer than necessary, and the obsessive worry about sodomy and prison rape borders on homophobia, whether or not this was intentional.

Yet for all that, there is much to rejoice over. The performances, particularly from Hoffman, are first rate, and Norton is as good as he's ever been. The overwhelming sense of solemnity is lightened by a few respites of upbeat humour, and the whole thing is backed by an innovative (if occasionally intrusive) soundtrack. But the final credit must go to David Benioff for having the gumption to write a novel like this in the first place - and then adapt it - and, of course, to Lee, for tackling such a potentially sensitive subject with such gusto.

(Sunday, 27th April 2003)