25th Hour (2002) or, Taking a Second Chance

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The simple, elegant poster for Spike Lee's 25th Hour

Monty (Edward Norton (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014))), a New York drug dealer, says goodbye to his girlfriend, friends, family and 'colleagues' on the last day before he has to do 7 years of jail time. 

The first New York City-set movie post 9/11, 25th Hour incorporates the tragedy into its story and is among great New Yorker filmmaker Spike Lee's (She's Gotta Have It (1986)) best films. Writer David Benioff's (When the Nines Roll Over (and Other Stories) (2004)) script, an adaptation of his own same-titled 2002 novel, is fresh and full of flesh-and-blood characters and substance. - There's lots of things going on in this great drama.
The superb ensemble cast elevates the already fine material; especially Norton and in supporting roles, Anna Paquin (The Piano (1993)), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Mission: Impossible III (2006)) and Brian Cox (L.I.E. (2001)) are uniformly strong. Ironically, since that seems to be the guiding theme of so many of Lee's films, this fine film of his lives fine without any significant racial themes.

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, here's a video of Lee and his stars talking of the film and its director

Cost: 5-15 mil. $ (different sources)
Box office: 23.9 mil. $
= Uncertainty (co-star Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) cites a 15 mil. $ in the above video, which seems likely, and the film should therefore most likely count as a big flop)
[25th Hour premiered 16 December (New York) and runs 135 minutes. It opened #38 to a 108k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #10 and in 495 theaters (different weeks), grossing 13 mil. $ (54.4 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 4 mil. $ (16.7 %) and France with 1.9 mil. $ (7.9 %). San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle called the film "an urban historical document as Rosselini's Open City", and A. O. Scott, Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert placed the film on their best of the decade lists: Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Lee returned with She Hate Me (2004). Norton returned in The Italian Job (2003). 25th Hour is certified fresh at 78 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 25th Hour?