All movies25th Hour

Rated:

R (strong language, some violence)

Running time:

2:14 minutes

Release date:

May 12, 2006

Capsule review:

Like all major filmmakers, Spike Lee has trouble making just a movie. He seems obsessed with making a statement, too. Such is the case with ``The 25th Hour,'' a story that goes so many ways that it has trouble saying anything at all. The basic plot involves Monty (Edward Norton), a guy facing a 7-year prison sentence for dealing drugs. On his final night of freedom, he spends time with his two best friends, a gambler broker (Barry Pepper) and a wimpy teacher (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his ex-alcoholic father (Brian Cox) and the girlfriend that he has trouble trusting (Rosario Dawson). We're supposed to feel his pain, his regrets, and Norton - a superb actor - does his best make this so. But Lee, working from a script by David Benioff (based on his novel), is bent on making Monty's story part of a larger testament to a post-9/11 New York City. But in involving us so much with each character's crisis, especially since each crisis is so profoundly basic to each one's personality, Lee makes it hard to figure out how each ties to the other. The film boasts several powerful moments, some of which are trademark Lee, others that show how much Lee has progressed as a visual storyteller. But he doesn't quite connect all the dots. And the drawn-out climax blends enough of ``Raising Arizona'' with Spielberg's ``A.I'' to nearly spoil everything that came before.