25th Hour

Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD

Herald rating: * * * *

Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is a nice guy, thoughtful, well-spoken. Unfortunately he hangs out with a bad crowd -- the Russian Mafia of New York -- and works in a really bad business, bigtime drug-dealing. Someone tipped off the cops, they found bags of the stuff, he's been convicted and tomorrow his father will drive him to prison to begin his seven-year sentence.

Monty is dreading prison because he knows he will lose seven years of his life and because he fears being raped.

Monty will spend his last night in New York with his friends: Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a high-school English teacher; Frank Slaughtery (Barry Pepper), a Wall Street trader; his girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson); and his father, James (Brian Cox).

Unlike Monty they can see his future after prison. They know that his life will never be the same, that he will be an outcast. But as we learned from the start, Monty is not a bad guy. He has some redeeming features: he gave his father money to pay off debts at the bar that James runs and he has looked after Naturelle.

Both know where the money came from, both disapprove of drugs but somehow divorce that from their good fortune. James blames himself rather than Monty. He believes it was his fault, not his son's, because he was a drunk and his wife died.

As is usual with Philip Seymour Hoffman characters, Jacob is a complex, many-layered man. Single, with few social skills, he is dedicated to his job because it eases his conscience over his good fortune, which was being born into a rich family. Jacob is attracted to one of his students, Mary D'Annunzio (Anna Paquin), but realises that to act on that would be a sin and a crime. Their paths, too, will cross on this night, and we will realise that Paquin has come a long way from Lower Hutt and those films about pianos or migrating geese -- so far, in fact, that her X-Men sequel is in next week's releases.

Spike Lee's film doesn't build to a great climax or resolution, because there can't be one to Monty's story. It is an intriguing picture of life in the early 21st century, and it may be set in New York (a key location overlooks the Twin Towers site) but it is not a million miles from home.

DVD features: movie (132min); commentary by director Spike Lee; commentary by writer David Benioff; features, The Evolution of an American Filmmaker and Ground Zero: A Tribute.