...a bit scattershot...but director Lee manages to pull it all together into a tense, gripping, suspenseful, and highly dramatic movie experience.
To be sure, Lee's gimmicks may seem overindulgent. There's the glossy, glitzy photography; the harsh pastels; the often jerky edits; the flashbacks and flash-forwards; the self dialogues; the voice-overs; the vocal surrounds. But it all works efficiently to complement and hold together the seemingly disjointed narrative. "25th Hour" packs a lot of story line into a single day, but it's a day worth spending with a character you wouldn't think so sympathetic. Add any metaphoric readings you'd like into the proceedings, and you get a distinguished and engrossing motion picture. The movie is rated R for occasional violence and continual raw language.
Video:
The video was shot to make maximum use of both color and black-and-white contrasts, with lighting heightened and hues often saturated. The result is an image that's purposely dark, stark, and grainy, like the events portrayed in the movie. The THX-mastered transfer well captures these visual qualities in a wide, 2.13:1 anamorphic ratio presentation. The picture is not meant to look real, mind you, but to offer a kind of representative reality, the reality Spike Lee wants you to see. Along with his other tricks, it may seem like overkill, but in general it works.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is quite dynamic, very deep, and widely spread out. The impact is enough to knock you down from the opening notes. A lot of rear-channel ambiance enhancement engages one in the music, while Lee plays with a number of unusual aural effects in the surrounds. Again, it may seem rather gimmicky to some listeners, but it's all a part of the kaleidoscope Lee is attempting to reveal. Terence Blanchard's original musical score, brooding and atmospheric, is well rendered, too, by the Dolby Digital audio.
Extras:
I liked the extras on the disc; they are few but are worth one's time. There are two audio commentaries, one with director Spike Lee and the other with writer David Benioff, although, to be honest I had only a moment to spend with them. More important for me was a twenty-two minute featurette on the director, "The Evolution of an American Filmmaker," that does an excellent job boiling down the work of a complex man into a few minutes. Then there's a brief salute, "Ground Zero: A Tribute," that is self explanatory. Six deleted scenes, a THX Optimizer set of audiovisual tests, and twenty scene selections conclude the bonus materials. English and French are provided as spoken languages, with English captions for the hearing impaired.
Parting Thoughts:
"We do what we have to do to survive," says a Russian gangster. So does everyone, I'm sure, and the movie does more than survive its minor deficiencies. The tales it tells may be a bit scattershot and the theme a mite vague, but director Lee manages to pull it all together into a tense, gripping, suspenseful, and highly dramatic movie experience. In fact, the more I've watched it and the more I've thought about it, the better it gets. Maybe because his beloved city and its people have never been more prominently on display in any of Spike Lee's films before, "25th Hour" turns out to be some of his best work to date.
Video:
The video was shot to make maximum use of both color and black-and-white contrasts, with lighting heightened and hues often saturated. The result is an image that's purposely dark, stark, and grainy, like the events portrayed in the movie. The THX-mastered transfer well captures these visual qualities in a wide, 2.13:1 anamorphic ratio presentation. The picture is not meant to look real, mind you, but to offer a kind of representative reality, the reality Spike Lee wants you to see. Along with his other tricks, it may seem like overkill, but in general it works.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is quite dynamic, very deep, and widely spread out. The impact is enough to knock you down from the opening notes. A lot of rear-channel ambiance enhancement engages one in the music, while Lee plays with a number of unusual aural effects in the surrounds. Again, it may seem rather gimmicky to some listeners, but it's all a part of the kaleidoscope Lee is attempting to reveal. Terence Blanchard's original musical score, brooding and atmospheric, is well rendered, too, by the Dolby Digital audio.
Extras:
I liked the extras on the disc; they are few but are worth one's time. There are two audio commentaries, one with director Spike Lee and the other with writer David Benioff, although, to be honest I had only a moment to spend with them. More important for me was a twenty-two minute featurette on the director, "The Evolution of an American Filmmaker," that does an excellent job boiling down the work of a complex man into a few minutes. Then there's a brief salute, "Ground Zero: A Tribute," that is self explanatory. Six deleted scenes, a THX Optimizer set of audiovisual tests, and twenty scene selections conclude the bonus materials. English and French are provided as spoken languages, with English captions for the hearing impaired.
Parting Thoughts:
"We do what we have to do to survive," says a Russian gangster. So does everyone, I'm sure, and the movie does more than survive its minor deficiencies. The tales it tells may be a bit scattershot and the theme a mite vague, but director Lee manages to pull it all together into a tense, gripping, suspenseful, and highly dramatic movie experience. In fact, the more I've watched it and the more I've thought about it, the better it gets. Maybe because his beloved city and its people have never been more prominently on display in any of Spike Lee's films before, "25th Hour" turns out to be some of his best work to date.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]10846[/release]