Monty (Edward Norton) is a heroin dealer going up the river for seven years for his sins. Opening with his rescue of a severely beaten dog (named "Doyle" when Monty's Russian mobster thug pal turns "Murphy's Law" into a malaprop--intention in place of fatalism because of mishap), Monty's life as a well-intentioned trafficker with nice girl Naturelle (Rosario Dawson) and good pals teacher Jakob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and stock hotshot Frank (Barry Pepper) is revisited in brief as he tries to cram as much living as he can into his last day as a free man. The suddenly ubiquitous Brian Cox turns in another effective turn as a grieving father and Paquin offers the best dirt-park Lolita since Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear.

Rodrigo Prieto's (Amores Perros, 8 Mile) brilliant cinematography is the star of the piece: his evocation of Manhattan after the blast as a washed, haunted place alive with anger and fear (and even a deeper separation) is compelling even as Lee's instinct to proselytize mixes ever more uneasily with his desire to be liked. Based on a novel by David Benioff (and adapted by the author himself), the film stays close to the text, exercising its artistic license mainly in its visuals (the beams of light replacing the two towers the most poignant) and in one case of magnification in which the racial harangue of Do the Right Thing, taken in part from the Benioff novel, is expanded into a two-minute barrage of variously ascribed "fuck you"s.

It's easy to see why Lee is drawn to this source material, his films always invested in the plight of the under-represented struggling against an unfair system while themselves embroiled in the petty fevers of race and gender. But Norton is increasingly an actor swallowed whole by his self-satisfaction and never quite finds the rhythm of his character. He lacks the potential energy he once exhibited in uneven work like American History X and Fight Club, content to float on a toxic cloud of early promise and late arrogance. Hoffman is fabulous in his ugly, naked way and Pepper, ever earnest, only really goes overboard in a scene in which it seems that everyone, dog included, was asked to go overboard. 25^th Hour is always compelling, but its deadline agitation reminds too much of Kathryn Bigelow's unwatchable Strange Days.

The sadness and sense of helplessness before creeping chaos is often right, but the vehicle is too sprawling, its sense of ultimate worth too smug, and its enfeebled closing dream sequence too much the device that reminds of a better, similar device that closes Raising Arizona. An early document of the wasteland, 25^th Hour has its echoes and its stings of resonance, but its story isn't equal to the precedent of parable set by Prieto's Stygian eye (from dance club as infernal garden of earthly delight to Manhattan's byways of ghost and demon). A fascinating failure, but a failure all the same.-Walter Chaw

2.37:1 DVD capture: Anna Paquin in 25th Hour

A movie I personally revere, 25^th Hour makes for a strong DVD presentation. The picture's THX-certified 2.37:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is somewhat difficult to criticize for the amount of pushing and pulling that Spike Lee and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto have done to the various film stocks used; areas of black often lose detail to create an attractive tableau that resembles a velvet painting, while the slightest trace of edge-enhancement serves to emphasize the frequent intentional grain. More overtly impressive is the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, among the showiest in recent memory. Monty/Norton's "fuck you" speech sounds dazzling, throwing voices and effects into the split-surrounds with dizzying abandon, and the club sequence offers a fantastic approximation of the real thing--music and bass assault you from everywhere and nowhere at once. Spike and screenwriter David Benioff offer less riveting individual commentaries, Lee reticent to give up certain production details (such as the name of the actress whom Anna Paquin replaced), Benioff concentrating on the inconsistencies between his source novel and its Hollywood adaptation. Given the significant amount of filler in both yakkers, I would've consolidated them into one tight track.

Spike is celebrated in "Spike Lee's 25^th Hour: The Evolution of an American Filmmaker" (22 mins.), which features testimonials from fellow New York auteurs Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet, past collaborators Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, and others, and 25^th Hour cast members Edward Norton (who had been clamouring to work with Lee before taking over for Tobey Maguire in 25^th Hour), Paquin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, and Brian Cox. Directed by Lorna Anozie, the piece is more insubstantial than an episode of A&E's "Biography", but worse, it's sloppily researched, spelling Mr. Lumet's name the feminine way ("Sydney") and erroneously crediting Samuel L. Jackson with an Oscar nomination for Jungle Fever. (That he deserved one doesn't count.) Elsewhere find six deleted scenes from 25^th Hour, including a disorienting and intriguing fourth wall-breaking monologue on the definition of "sway" and a passage worrisomely labelled "Mary's Death Scene"--it's actually Paquin acting out a bit from "Hamlet", and by the way, doesn't she look great sweaty? A 6-minute outtake of footage from Ground Zero (shot in the daytime during the final stages of depuration) backed by the strains of Terence Blanchard's lush score rounds out the disc. Worth it for the film alone.-Bill Chambers

© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.

DO THE RIGHT THING

GET ON THE BUS

BAMBOOZLED

SHE HATE ME

INSIDE MAN