25th Hour - 9/11 Reflection

Spike Lee's film, 25th Hour is a underrated film that explores in great detail the city of New York after the devastating events that happened on the 11th of September, 2001, better known as 9/11. The director of the film is considered one of the most controversial filmmakers due to his cinematic voice regardless of what is usually seen in mainstream Hollywood. This way he is able to create one of the most powerful films in these past years. The plot of the movie is straightforward, allowing anybody to watch and understand the movie but at the same time Lee saw this film as a golden ticket to expose 9/11 because the original novel published before 9/11 by David Benioff had no correlation to the terrorist attacks. The film is about Monty Brogan, a drug dealer who is sentenced to prison for seven years and lives his last 24 hours before being imprisoned. Throughout the film, Monty has various dialogues that express his feelings towards the terrorist attacks and one very powerful monologue known as the "Fuck You Montage" where he looks at himself in the mirror and criticizes the city that raised him and every other cultural aspect within New York. This might be the most obvious part of the film where the main character relates to the terrorist attack. Besides that, throughout the film, the color and tone shows why the movie has a direct relation to 9/11. Lee shows a broken down New York city and the stressful lives that citizens were living during the time. As said before, the criticism that Monty sets on the table is displayed by his little care of moving away from New York city or other aspects such as Frank accusing Naturelle because of her ethnicity. Within the movie there are numerous details that explicitly shows why this movie is so powerful.

Personally when I watched this movie, I did not pay much attention to why and how this movie was such a huge hit in relation to the 9/11 attacks but focused more on the plot. Replaying the scenes in my head and feeling the setting of the movie, makes it clear in my head why Spike Lee showed things the way they were in the movie. It is a complex, very powerful film and a good one to watch. Spike Lee does a outstanding job portraying the post 9/11 scene through 25th Hour.