Spike Lee hasn't made a watchable film in seven years (documentaries not included), which, come to think of it, was the last time he helmed a picture based on a novel (Clockers).  There's definitely a drop-off in quality when Lee directs from somebody else's original script, or – god forbid – pens it himself.  Luckily, The 25th Hour is based on a book by David Benioff, who also adapted the screenplay here.  That makes the story interesting and the dialogue crisp, but Lee still manages to befoul the edges, especially with the use of Terence Blanchard's score.  The combination of Blanchard and the ever-frustrating Lee always guarantees the images and the music will never synch up.  You'd literally be better off choosing any other film score at random and playing that.  Coincidentally, Blanchard started scoring Lee's films right around the same time I started disliking them.

We hear a dog being beaten while we look at the studio logo as Hour starts. The near-dead pooch is discovered by Monty Brogan (Edward Norton, Red Dragon) and his large Ukranian bodyguard (footballer Tony Siragusa), who argue before Monty decides to throw the dog in his trunk and get it some help. This scene is, I think, supposed to establish Monty as a good guy because we later learn he's a convicted drug dealer about to start serving a seven-year prison term.  Monty postulates about the dog being beaten and left to die by its drug-dealing owner.  You know, the bad kind of drug dealer – not the good kind, which is what we're supposed to think Monty is.  To drive the point home, Monty is bitten on the neck as he puts the dog in his trunk.  And he's such a good drug dealer, he doesn't even complain once.

Hours shows the 25 hours in 31-year-old Monty's life before he has to check himself into the pokey.  We first get an idea about his dealing when, while sitting on a park bench admiring the East River (with the now-domesticated dog at his side), he's approached by a junkie looking to score.  "I got touched," Monty says, before getting up and making several stops to set up his Last Night Out.  First, Monty visits his old prep school, where he sees his old-pal-turned-teacher Jakob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Love Liza).  We also meet Monty's friend Frank Slattery (Barry Pepper, We Were Soldiers), his incredibly young, incredible hot girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson, Men in Black 2), and his dad (Brian Cox, Adaptation).  We also learn Monty started slinging skunk to get his dad, a former alcoholic, out of trouble.  Because he's the good kind of drug dealer.

We also see, via flashback, Monty's bust and interrogation.  He's not completely sure who ratted him out but suspects Naturelle, which leads to some strain in their relationship.  Meanwhile, Jakob and Frank argue over whether Monty is going to be able to survive his trip to the joint (in a great, unedited long shot), and Monty's pop suggests his boy hit the road and never look back.  It all culminates in the VIP room of a popular Manhattan club...or does it?  I thought it would, but really had no clue where Hour was headed, which was kind of exciting.  You could say the same thing about a number of Lee's films, but this was the first time in a while where I actually cared where the story was going.

Things that worked include the acting (from everyone), the Homicide-style editing of Barry Alexander Brown, the sharp, gritty dialogue and Rodrigo Prieto's equally gritty photography (he was also the cinematographer on 8 Mile, Amores Perros and Frida).  I would say I enjoyed Monty's bathroom-mirror rant at all of the things he hates about New Yorkers (it's like an extended version of the racial tirades from Do the Right Thing), but that might make me sound like a racist.  The main thing that didn't work, not counting the irritating score and the whole good drug dealer thing, was Lee's heavy-handed use of post-9/11 New York.  There are references all over the place, but none worse than the opening credits, which show the beams of light where the WTC used to be, accompanied, of course, by Blanchard's blaring "music."

2:14 -

for strong language and some violence