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Review
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Somebody finked on Monty Brogan and he is convicted of
dealing in narcotics and receives a seven year sentence.
25th hour dramatizes his last 24 hours of freedom as Brogan
(Edward Norton) evaluates his options, and his life, and
considers who it is that might have finked on him. He
ruminates, in disturbing detail, about what will happen to a
skinny, weakling white boy like himself in a state prison,
cast to the wolves. His two close friends privately discuss
how he will never recover from prison, and their comments
are knowing, streetwise, and shattering in a way that no
prison movie has ever achieved. Frank, whose apartment
overlooks the remains of the World Trade Centre, considers
how disproportionate the punishments are for drug-dealers
and for businessmen who bilked people out of their pensions.
At least, he observes, the drug user knows what he's
getting for his money.
His other friend, Jacob, a nerdish high school teacher,
considers putting the make on a student of his whom he
thinks is flirting with him. He is tempted though he knows
that society reacts almost as hysterically to men who abuse
positions of trust for sex as they do to drug dealers.
Another of Frank's observations: currency dealers could
throw tens of thousands of people out of work without
suffering the slightest approbation.
A remarkable movie, the first I know of to openly consider
the results of 9/11, the moral implications of Enron, and
the harshness of our drug laws, frankly, honestly, and
disturbingly.
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