25th Hour
Director: Spike Lee
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.0
To quote a friend that I saw this with, "It never had any potential to go anywhere, so when it didn't, I wasn't surprised." I fully concur, but would like to add that this, along with Bamboozled and School Daze, is one of my least favorite Lee films, capitalizing on tragedy (the shot of the World Trade Center's grave lingers longer than it should), including subplots it doesn't know what to do with (namely, Philip Seymour Hoffman's fixation on a flighty student ... what it has to do with the rest of the movie I could never tell you) and taking much longer than it needs to end (his 'what if?' trick ending is particularly bothersome). Lee's scenes are shapeless and the dialogue tends to run on; if there's a true revelation in the picture, it's former Baltimore Raven Tony Siragusa, who is shockingly convincing as Edward Norton's Russian buddy: who knew football players could act this well?
