Kevin Parks
April 2026

 

Fuck You, Too: 25th Hour’s 9/11 Feeling

 

Substitute Terence Blanchard for George Gershwin, the Twin Lights for Central Park, and Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) arrives resembling both a gritty counterpoint and oddball companion to Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). Instead of the nervous, chatty intellectuals who populate Allen’s gushing love letter, Lee personifies New York City’s crippling 9/11 malaise with Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a convicted felon on the eve of his seven-year jail sentence. Equal parts self-loathing and -pity, Monty is a coiled spring of anger whose inner rage explodes outward early and often. Most famously, Monty unveils a meandering middle finger in front of a full-length bathroom mirror, directing animus at his “rat-infested” city, a string of rambling “fuck yous” which bounce off his own reflection and stick right to him. Lee, that bard of the five boroughs, a consummate street-level auteur, presents Monty as a stand-in for a generation of weary, broken locals, full-time mourners desperate for redemption but unable to acknowledge the life-sized pit of rubble staring back. 

In a featurette, Brian Cox (who plays Monty’s father James) commended Lee for grappling with that “post-9/11 feeling,” although the actor doesn’t elaborate, implying that – in the parlance of our times – if you know, you know. And, it’s true that Lee was unique among directors at that time, offering an unflinching overhead view of Manhattan’s decimated downtown. Whereas Ben Stiller’s model-industry farce Zoolander (2001) had the World Trade Center deleted from all skyline shots, Lee refused to look away from Ground Zero. To call the city a character in any film is trite, but in Lee’s case, his cityscapes are actual performers, deserving of dramatic traits and arcs. The dimly-lit courts in He Got Game (1998), the brownstone steps in Do The Right Thing (1989), the wet sidewalk cement in Red Hook Summer (2012) are complex, confounding creatures, offering solace and security and occasionally, emitting contempt. 

Addressing the “9/11 feeling” through generalities or ready-made takeaways isn’t the aim here. Lee and screenwriter David Benioff (who also wrote the source novel) sketch characters out with a pencil then, through forward momentum, flashbacks and a hazy, enigmatic dream sequence, layer on details in the margins, connecting the micro to the macro. The film shifts shapes from a docudrama to procedural to finally, a fantasy set to the sounds of Bruce Springsteen. It’s less convincing – and more grating – when the script feasts on a steady diet of dick jokes (Monty to a detective who arrested him: “When you have your dick in his mouth, does he just keep talking like that?”) and immigrant humor (mostly at the expense of Monty’s Mafia henchman, Kostya), and is on most sturdy footing when Lee plants the story in Monty’s unsteady head.

And no other scene announces that this is a Spike Lee joint than Monty’s “fuck you” symphony, itself a callback to Do The Right Thing, which might have been on Benioff’s mind when he wrote it into his novel. Monty visits his father’s Staten Island bar, observing “Fuck You” scribbled on the bathroom mirror. In a singular performative implosion, Monty then lashes out at his best friends, father, and girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson). From there, he broadens the scope, decrying corporate America (“Send those Enron assholes to jail for fucking life!”) and Muslim cab drivers (“Terrorists in fucking training!”). For the entire monologue, the refrain of “Fuck the …” decries a specific sworn enemy (“… the Russians in Brighton Beach … the Chelsea Boys”), unfurling a stream-of-consciousness tirade dressed as a perverse, vulgar showtune. At once unhinged and disturbingly controlled, Monty convulses with palpable disgust, conjuring the slippery us versus them schism which pervaded post-9/11 America.

Here, there will be no Mister Senor Love Daddy interjection, imploring Monty to chill. The emotional violence of the moment is so of that moment, that Lee captures and unpacks an entire city’s grief, deploying Monty as the model for irrepressible despair and incessant finger-pointing. Monty begins, “Fuck me? Fuck you, and this whole city and everyone in it” and ends with some modest introspection (“No, fuck you, Monty Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you dumb fuck!”). But what’s in between defines Monty’s steady state, an unbearable helplessness that can’t be cured, and if no one is to blame, everyone is. And while a high-octane venting session might provide some short-term relief, it won’t change the fact that Monty’s world is disintegrating. The proverbial clock is ticking, he’s got one night left.

And to that, Monty might have said, no shit. Cursing Osama bin Laden, Jesus Christ (“He got off easy!”), and pals Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Frank (Barry Pepper) won’t free him from what he sees as a life sentence. Nor will discovering whether or not Nat called the cops on him help Monty rest easier in the jail cell for the next seven years. And yet, speculation and conjecture can provide a temporary balm, a distraction from Monty’s cold, inescapable reality. Time heals in theory, but in practice, grief and despair forge a void that widens, not contracts over time. Monty isn’t blind to that, rejecting pat assurances from Frank, who promises to visit and, when Monty’s free again, to help him start over. Maybe even open a bar together, because what would two Irish kids be without a bar?

Each character’s arc volleys from somber to chaotic and back again, an unsettling volatility representative of that “9/11 feeling.” When Jacob meets Frank at his place before Monty’s final night out, Blanchard’s orchestral music evokes a funeral procession for both a city and their friend, emphasizing what has been lost instead of what might sprout up – like a rhapsody in view – in its place. Frank’s apartment overlooks Ground Zero, that gaping hole which contrasts to the majestic monochrome Twin Towers depicted in Manhattan’s swaggering opening shots. The two friends stare down at the rubble, which won’t stay empty forever, but building over it couldn’t possibly cover up the massive dent to the country’s morale. For a time, those in power leaned on aggressive retaliation and threatening verbiage, echoing Frank’s fitful wishful thinking for Monty. 

Frank’s stubborn vow to Monty sounds more for his own benefit, signaling a breathless search for meaning and vengeance, which in the real world came for some on May 2, 2011. To me, forging a connection to any 9/11-adjacent event is an involuntary reflex, and the victory of bin Laden’s death felt more Pyrrhic than triumphant. On my walk to work that morning after his death was reported – “Justice has been done” – my grandma called me. Ten years earlier, we had hung on to the possibility that my dad, who worked in the North Tower, had somehow survived, and when that probability faded, the hope was that his body would be found. When we finally heard that his lifeless body was recovered, I both fought and embraced the news, blending hysterical tears with a bitter, wrenching comfort of closure.

Talking to my grandma on the phone brought me back to those impossible moments. Neither of us had unique insights, nor did we cheer the “justice” or celebrate that we were the ones for whom it had “been done.” I couldn’t fight the glib instinct that it was just another casualty in the sprawling war on terror, taking place in a faraway land.  It was a melancholy reminder of what had been taken away, what was missing and wouldn’t be returned, no matter who else is killed. For the outside world, bin Laden’s death might have brought 9/11 full circle, but for my family, it was just another day to cope and grieve, unwelcoming the worst memories – of buildings collapsing and bodies falling from them, analyzing my dad’s potential dying thoughts, his decision to jump or burn to death – from ten years earlier.

Benioff’s novel was published in early 2001, so that he and Lee added references to Al-Qaeda and bin Laden during Monty’s speech displays the film’s approach towards defining what Cox labeled the “9/11 feeling.” It wasn’t enough to support the troops or hang flags in public; in private, it was necessary, to quote Monty, to rail against “backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere.” The common thread of disdain – toward both justifiable threats and villains, as well as innocent victims abroad – helped patch the national mood up, but rebuilding based on the shared values of fear and mistrust risked burning bridges, instead of building them to last.

Monty’s verbal pyrotechnics aside, these characters are largely non-partisan, concerned for themselves and relatively unmoved by the world around them. Frank is an exception, but only to the extent that 9/11 affects his day job (he works on Wall St.) and his personal finances (he can’t sell his apartment, since it neighbors the World Trade Center’s remains). The male characters’ temperaments operate on a spectrum of extremes – white hot or milquetoast -, and Monty aligns more closely with Frank’s exaggerated bravado (“I happen to have a very large penis”) than James or Jacob. In the speech, Monty calls out his father and his “endless grief” (about Monty and his dead wife) and Jacob, that “whining malcontent” implying weakness in these beta males, both of whom shed actual tears in the face of Monty’s withholding and denial.

Lee winks at this masculine yin and yang when Jacob’s high school student Mary D’Annunzio (Anna Paquin) compares her work (which earned a B) to that of a male peer (an A+). Mary calls bullshit for rewarding someone who, on weekends, slaps Mary’s ass at parties, but is lauded for writing so honestly about his grandma’s death. Jacob defends his grading decision, mentioning how it’s harder for men to talk about feelings, logic Mary challenges again (“That’s what grandmas do. They die!”), before exiting in frustration. When they meet again later, Jacob is drunk and – floating on Lee’s trademark dolly – kisses Mary, a blunder that should end his career. Acting against his own best interest is new to Jacob, unlike the self-proclaimed Casanova Frank or fearless, reckless Monty (who began dating Nat while she was in high school – hey again, Manhattan!), who basically endorsed Jacob’s doomed pursuit of a minor. 

While all major players barrel towards inevitable tragedy and resolution, Lee saves his most subversive storytelling gambit for the end. On the drive to the penitentiary, James tells his son that he could just keep going, drop him off somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where Monty can start over. James’ rugged Brooklynese describes a different future, where Monty gets a job, calls for Nat, and the two start a family under assumed names. Not only does this fantasy depict onscreen an older, grayer and mustachioed Monty talking to his children and grandchildren, but it also welcomes back visions from earlier, including a montage of those same New York cabbies – smiling and waving -, the Bensonhurst Italians – non-threatening, together as if posing for a family portrait – deserving of Monty’s “fuck you” animosity in the mirror speech.

Upending expectations with a glint towards unity, Lee then doubles down, featuring Springsteen’s “The Fuse” in the closing credits. Having released his patriotic, redemptive album “The Rising” in 2002, Springsteen had morphed from a revered superstar to a guardian angel, especially in the suburban New Jersey town where I grew up. He organized a free concert for 9/11 families – my sister and mom went – and cut a uniquely uncontroversial symbol of national pride, when that was actually possible. The Boss wasn’t, however, an obvious choice for a Spike Lee joint, where it’s typically the maestro Blanchard (who wrote “The Fuse” string arrangements), Public Enemy or some hodgepodge of period-specific rock and hip-hop. For a film that depicts extreme attitudes, Lee ends with a plea for nuance, a middle ground (via Springsteen) between ra-ra xenophobia and a helpless, collective shrug.

On that metric, 25th Hour deviates from Lee’s canon, which favors chilling, explosive finales. Frequent collaborator Denzel Washington said in an interview that he had teased Lee before, suggesting he “throw a couple jabs” instead of always going for the knockout right hook. But, Lee isn’t a one-note provocateur, he’s a gifted chronicler of troubled lives and hard times, and the shift at the end towards hope and imagined prosperity presents a fuller version of that “9/11 feeling.” For my family, and thousands of others torpedoed by 9/11, that meant permanent, incalculable loss. The immediate response, Lee reminds us, was a groundswell of solidarity and generosity. Countless visitors – friends and pseudo-strangers – brought food, company and distractions. Teachers who barely knew me called to check in (and still do, to this day). A neighbor paid the mortgage on our house for those uncertain months when income had vanished. 

So, if Monty’s speech is the overwhelming anxiety of the moment, the twenty-fifth hour coda is the foil, the sense that while nothing can substitute for the loss, rock bottom isn’t an eternal state of being. Lee isn’t so much pulling back as he is uncovering another layer, providing evidence to the contrary, a flipside to Monty’s darkness, an alternative to the world self-destructing. Then again, nothing could prepare Monty for the moment when he goes to jail, deprived of resources which buffered him: Nat’s loyalty, his dog Doyle, Kostya (Tony Siragusa) chasing down dead beats. Meanwhile, life must go on beyond the prison walls, explaining why Monty bats away Frank’s incessant optimism, believing that seven years might as well be life. And so the fear is palpable, a cinch to access, while the sense that the future might turn out better seems far-fetched, an almost irresponsible flight of fancy.

That speaks to the nature of loss, particularly when it’s sudden and especially when it’s such a shared, public event. My dad went to work on a Tuesday morning, and died on a day which now acts as a verb (Jay Z: “I was gon’ 9/11 them/but they didn’t need the help.”), adjective and noun. Life would resume, but no one knew how, and when the support system abated, the force of the small moments could be shattering. For a fatherless 14-year-old, that meant punching walls, unpredictable crying fits and a sustained sense that only the worst would happen. For Monty, that means watching over his shoulder in jail, burrowing inward and shouting at himself in a mirror. His last act of desperation is asking Frank to “make me ugly,” and what’s irrational to his friends is a method of prison survival for Monty. And, to Lee, that’s a tongue-in-cheek win for optimism, since Monty’s proposed alternative is a bullet to his temple. 

Lee allows Monty to live, and to imagine his return to the free world. Following Benioff’s cue, Lee is a forgiving creator, but it’s possible they’re both rooting for Monty. He’s but one flawed, weak link in a massive city, and if he can rebound, so can everyone. And what Monty’s rant suggests is that there’s no difference between the friends and enemies, tragic, suffering figures all. A quarter-century later, that “9/11 feeling” is a disease whose symptoms bring out a kitchen sink of raw emotions, and 25th Hour unleashes them all – guilt, jealousy, denial – in Monty’s full-volume existential wail. Lee’s fiction doubles as a historical document, a snapshot of a battered city which stands in front of the mirror to issue an emphatic rejoinder: “Fuck me? No, fuck you.”

 

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Kevin Parks is a writer and film critic working on his first collection of short fiction. His film  writing has been published on Drunk Monkeys and The Movie Buff, and his fiction is scheduled to be published in the Tulsa Review soon.