25th Hour

This is the last day of freedom for convicted drug dealer Monty Brogan (Norton). His best buddies Jacob (Hoffman) and Slaughtery (Pepper) rally to show him one last night on the town, with or without Monty's girlfriend Naturelle (Dawson), who may or may not have shopped him to the cops. Terrified of what awaits him, and ashamed of his past, Monty has no appetite to settle any scores - he just has one more favour he wants to ask of his friends. Working from a script by David Benioff based on his own novel, Lee is in 'director for hire' mode, though New York stories remain his speciality. That special relationship with the city probably accounts for the picture's doomy ambience, an undertow of melancholy resignation doubtless magnified by the unscripted intrusion of 9/11. The Twin Towers are a lacuna overshadowing Monty's relatively trivial fate. Rodrigo Prieto gives the visuals a sombre lustre and Lee fashions numerous striking, eventful scenes, but while 25th Hour has a several arresting characters struggling with credible problems, regrettably Monty isn't one of them.