25th Hour tells the story of Monty Brogan's last day of freedom. He was convicted to 7 years in prison for drug dealing.
Edward Norton plays Monty and he never disappoints me. He is always capable of doing a great emotional performance. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper play Monty's best friends, both gave very strong performances.
There are such remarkable scenes in this film like the powerful "make me ugly" scene. Barry Pepper together with Norton made that scene so authentic, it's beautiful and the amazing "mirror" scene where Norton blames basicaly everyone in the world for his fate. The final scene is also powerful, when a father dreams about a much brighter future for his son.
The connection with 9/11 events are very strong. New York City like Monty, will never be the same again. He can't run away from his fate, he can't undone his mistakes in life, he really is going to prison. It's real.

Very enjoyable film starring Ed Norton. A good ending, too.

A very somber and depressing movie. Spike Lee does a lot to make the time we have with Monty meaningful. That mirror scene is amazing. Edward Norton is fantastic. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper both give great supporting performances.

It’s alright, I don’t think this quite gets to the heart of anything truly interesting. Any thematic resemblance this is supposed to have to 9/11 seems a little thin to me, which makes sense because most of this movie was actually shot before 9/11. Technically, I found some of the cinematography and editing to be ill-conceived (those repetitive edits, why?), the music during the opening credits in particular is very distasteful. The acting’s pretty decent (Norton easily outperforms everyone), the scene with the mirror being the very clear highlight of the film. A lot of it just feels banal, it often focuses on uninteresting side characters or it’s coasting too much on the idea of it being Monty’s last day to make scenes feel more special than they are. The main character’s certainly compelling enough to carry it to the finish line, but overall this isn’t one of Spike’s sharpest films.

5.5/10

Is there another movie by that title ? I remember watching this before and really liking it. I remember the opening scene with the dog but this was rather boring to be honest. The performances are allright and there are some individual scenes I liked. As a whole this never clicked with me. Maybe it's all the America references, I don't know.
I really wanted to watch this again but now I don't know why.

Even after Fight Club, I didn't quite see the appeal of Edward Norton. After this movie, I completely do. He harnesses all the nihilistic, broken regret, wistfulness, and crookedness of the film and conveys it through one character. This film is a better capture of immediate post 9/11 New York than any other film. It's not that something broke, necessarily, but that something was exposed. The ugly hopelessness was exposed as much as the resilience, and that mood is in every shot of the film. The mirror rant is especially expertly shot. The rotten man at the core of Monty hating everyone and everything else until he rebukes him, accepts that this is his own fault. And Spike Lee's intimate closeups are at their best here, showing everything Monty hates, and later, everything he loves about this city. The one real knock I have against the film is that even with him doing his considerable best, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character feels superfluous and distracting. That aside, 25th Hour is still one of Lee's best.