25TH HOUR

Edward Norton plays Monty, a yuppie drug dealer who has one day to go before submitting to a seven-year prison stretch, and the role plays right into Norton’s gift for letting brainy anxiety detonate just beneath the surface of a scene. The director, Spike Lee, stages a long, bravura nightclub sequence in which Monty and his two old pals let their guards down, and we see that Monty, for all the superficial acceptance of his fate, is living in a frozen state of terror and denial. There are some contrivances, but the movie is held together by the toughness and pity of Lee’s gaze.