Et merde!

[chani]

I wrote a very long review of a movie I saw on the cable, and that I thought was very good (hence the long entry), I was done but of course I hit the wrong button at the wrong moment and lost everything I had written!

It's annoying and frustrating especially for me as English isn't my native language and I need time to put my thoughts together and write down sentences.

So well the movie was 25th Hour, a Spike Lee's joint, and despite his first name I'm not a fan of that director so I didn't bother to see the film when it was out 2 years ago. I was wrong it's brilliant and moving,  a must- see, and I won't type the long review again so you'll get only  its substantifique moëlle.

Spoilers if you hadn't seen it.

This year Gus Van Sant told the last days of a man to death, and the way life desintegrates during those days, in 2002 Spike lee told another journey, Monty Brogan's 24 last hours of freedom before going to jail and how he sorted his life out.

So it's a journey and it's heartbreaking. Actually I ended up crying like a baby. We shouldn't feel for the character played by Edward Norton, he was a drug dealer, he destroyed others for personal gain, he ruined his own life and wasted his potential yet we cannot not feel sorry for him. His anguish, his fears are just palpable. The film is also about how his friends and family (father, girlfriend) deal with his upcoming incarceration. They all guess what's in store for him. Norton gives  a great performance and the supportive cast is wonderful too.

Monty's two buddies (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) are as essential to the movie as they are in his life. They are very different but they both love him. BTW he chooses to spend his last night with them because they are the people whom he trusts the most.

There are flaws but I'm too lazy to sum them up this time (too bad you didn't get the previous and better version!). Anyway the great sides of the film overcome its flaws.

The opening scene is very meaningful IMO. It tells us that salvation is possible and humanity is still there.

Monty who hasn't been arrested yet, is hanging out with a giant Ukrainian friend of his, his partner in crime actually, and finds a beaten dog in the street. Severely injured, the dog is in pain, and Monty thinks of killing him out of pity, but when he goes closer the dog tried to bite him showing that he still has energy and there are still rage and life in him. So Monty decides to take the dog and struggles to put him into the truck despite his friend's advice. The dog is adopted and named Doyle (Monty is Irish) after a corrolary of Murphy's Law, the Doyle's Law. Actually Monty's Ukrainian friend mistakes Doyle's law for Murphy's Law. It's very symbolical of course.  Not only it shows that something is going to go wrong (Murphy's Law) and that Monty is capable of humanity and can save a life, while his Ukrainian friend would have left the dog (and in the end Monty found out that he was the one who sold him to the cops!) but also it works as a paradigm.

Because Monty is symbollicaly that dog, or rather is going to become that dog, beaten and lying on the ground, figuratively (his depressive last hours of freedom) and literally (in his last scene with his two chums)!

But actually Doyle's Law says that: No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter who pays, each puts the full fare on his own expense account.

Metaphorically the cab is the 24 hours journey Monty and his circle (father, girlfriend and his two friends from childhood) are going to share.

Will they save him as he saved the dog or will they let him down?

Shy Jakob follows his friend for his last hours to a nightclub despite his shame and fears, taking even some risk with his slutty student and eventually accepts to take care of Doyle, the dog who needs a new home.

But one of the most powerful scenes of the film is when Monty asks a favour to Frank, the Wall Street Trader. Attractive, confident, successful with money and women, Frank seems to be a bit of a jerk, very different from the other buddy, Jakob a lonely and nerdy English teacher with poor social skills, lusting hopelessly after a student (Hoffman of course! He's really typecasted now). Frank who's very forthright even tells Jakob that Monty "profited from other's misery and he deserves what he gets" . Yet Frank is probably the most touching character of the movie and the most deeply affected by Monty's fall. 

The favour his friend asks is simple: to smash his face in, to make him ugly before he leaves for prison because the first day is important and Monty is too cute and skinny(Edward Norton!) for that Hell of tough guys... Frank is horrified and first refuses, they have a fight, Jakobtakes a punch when trying to step in and Monty makes Frank do it. I swear I was sobbing along with Frank while he was pounding Monty's face down to a pulp before collapsing in tears. Then the camera shows the 3 broken figures from afar and we hear nothing but silence and the natrure's sounds. Spike Lee got the right tone and Barry Pepper who hadn't the easiest role to play in the movie is amazing in that scene and in the nighclub scenes as well. What a wonderful actor! So yes Frank pays the price and doesn't let his friend down but in a bloody and tragic way.

 There are many great scenes in that movie, including beautiful shots of NY and of a cleaning crew on Ground Zero, but the one that will probably stay a classic is the "fuck you" scene in which Monty is pouring out his rage by saying "fuck you" to every NY community, to the ones he loves, to JC and ends his tirade by including the man who's staring back in the mirror, that is himself, because he's the one to blame actually for screwing everything up. The montage is terrific.

Kuddos to Mr Spike Lee!

I know I said it was the shortened review and actually it is...so imagine what the first version was and understand why I was mad when it disappeared!

 

Comments

[comava.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a very good movie. I really enjoy your movie reviews, and I ususally end up wanting to see them myself. :-)

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

You're cute when you're angry!

;~)