.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Imagine for a moment your best friend has been charged with a crime that in 24 hours will incarcerate them for seven years. What would you do? Where would you take them? What would you say?

That is the premise for Spike Lee's (Do the Right Thing) new film The 25 th Hour. Ed Norton (Primal Fear) plays Monty, a drug dealer with 24 hours before having to report to authorities to begin serving his sentence. Helping him focus on the present rather than the imminent future are his two friends Frank and Jacob (played by Barry Pepper and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, respectively) and his live in girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), who may or may not have turned him in for immigrant status.

The movie follows the group as they reminisce about old times, things that could have been and the bleak perspective that after seven years in prison, life outside the jail walls does not look any more promising.

Spike Lee does a masterful job in asking all the right questions. What does a con have to look forward to? Who will hire them when they get out? Will your friends still be there for you at the end of your term and just who are your friends anyways? Each question is asked without preaching any answers and you end up leaving the viewing with great discussionary topics if you so choose.

One question asked through a voice over at the beginning and conclusion of the film is, what will you miss. Early, Monty rants in front of a bathroom mirror about the state of New York . Leaving no nationality untouched, he storms about Indians, Blacks, Italians etc. How each of these stereotypes bug him in their own way. However, in his final hour, Monty has come full circle and concludes how much he is going to miss the nationalities and all their obvious quirkiness. It's Spike's way of showing bigotry then remorse with the 'Don't know what you've got till it's gone' philosophy.

Part social commentary, part love story for the city of New York post 9/11, Spike keeps the films pace by keeping the audience thinking. We never find out whether Naturelle turned him in, nor do we flash forward seven years to see if his friends are standing at the jailhouse gates waiting for him. We are reminded throughout the film that Monty has three options; he can run, he can kill himself or he can do the time. The movie is so interesting, that we don't spend too much time trying to figure out which option he might take, but rather, we soak in the speeches and commentary of the characters.

An elongated scene where Frank and Jacob speak about the forthcoming evening with the backdrop of the World Trade Center clean up out the apartment window, is one of the best Spike Lee moments in his young directing career. The fact that Spike kept the 9/11 story in the background as opposed to saturating us with images most of us soon want to forget is commendable and shows considerable restraint.

The DVD comes with a few extras including deleted scenes and extended footage of the WTC workers sweeping up debris or large bulldozers and machines moving large pieces of metal into trucks. I understood neither the meaning or the purpose for this footage as part of the special features, but then again, I am not the New York citizen or have the love for the city that Spike has.

The 25 th Hour was one of the best films of 2003, and I was surprised at how Spike was able to still include his racial indifferences into the film without making me feel like I was part of the choir. Whereas he usually goes for the throat with his ethnic opinions, The 25 th Hour still has us ask the same questions, but it comes from us questioning ourselves and how we would view our city is we were forced to say good-bye for a few years. I high recommendation.