Directed by Spike Lee. Written by David Benioff, based on his novel The 25th Hour.

Monty Brogan

• [standing in the men's bathroom, talking to himself in a mirror with a "FUCK YOU" written on it] Well, fuck you, too. Fuck me, fuck you, fuck this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores, stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin' and dealin' and schemin'. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. 20 to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin' parade in the city. And don't even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, 'cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their Jason Giambi, Louisville slugger, baseball bats, trying to audition for the Sopranos. Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You're not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended 137 years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child's pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you're at it, fuck JC! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin' Otisville, J! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and backward-ass, cave-dwelling, fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your 72 whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass! Fuck Jacob Elinsky, whining malcontent. Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend's ass. Fuck Naturelle Riviera, I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back, sold me up the river, fucking bitch. Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar sipping on club sodas, selling whisky to firemen, cheering the Bronx bombers. Fuck this whole city and everyone in it. From the row-houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue, from the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho. From the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park slope to the split-levels in Staten Island. Let an earthquake crumble it, let the fires rage, let it burn to fucking ash and then let the waters rise and submerge this whole rat-infested place. [pause] No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you dumb fuck!

• [Toasting his friends in the nightclub on his last night] Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.

James Brogan

• [to Monty] We'll drive. Keep driving. Head out to the middle of nowhere, take that road as far as it takes us. You've never been west of Philly, have ya? This is a beautiful country Monty, it's beautiful out there, like a different world. Mountains, hills, cows, farms, and white churches. I drove out west with your mother one time, before you was born. Brooklyn to the Pacific in three days. Just enough money for gas, sandwiches, and coffee, but we made it. Every man, woman, and child alive should see the desert one time before they die. Nothin' at all for miles around. Nothin' but sand and rocks and cactus and blue sky. Not a soul in sight. No sirens. No car alarms. Nobody honkin' atcha. No madmen cursin' or pissin' in the streets. You find the silence out there, you find the peace. You can find God. So we drive west, keep driving till we find a nice little town. These towns out in the desert, you know why they got there? People wanted to get way from somewhere else. The desert's for startin' over. Find a bar and I'll buy us drinks. I haven't had a drink in two years, but I'll have one with you, one last whisky with my boy. Take our time with it, taste the barley, let it linger. And then I'll go. I'll tell you dont ever write me, dont ever visit, I'll tell you I believe in God's kingdom and I'll see you and your mother again, but not in this lifetime. You'll get a job somewhere, a job that pays cash, a boss who doesn't ask questions, and you make a new life and you never come back. Monty, people like you, it's a gift, you'll make friends wherever you go. You're going to work hard, you're going to keep your head down and your mouth shut. You're going to make yourself a new home out there. You're a New Yorker, that won't ever change. You got New York in your bones. Spend the rest of your life out west but you're still a New Yorker. You'll miss your friends, you'll miss your dog, but you're strong. You got your mother backbone in you, you're strong like she was. You find the right people, and you get yourself papers, a drivers license. You forget your old life, you can't come back, you can't call, you can't write. You never look back. You make a new life for yourself and you live it, you hear me? You live your live the way it should have been. But maybe, this is dangerous, but maybe after a few years you send word to Naturelle. You get yourself a new family and you raise them right, you hear me? Give them a good life Monty. Give them what they need. You have a son, maybe you name him James, it's a good strong name, and maybe one day years from now years after im dead and gone reunited with your dear ma, you gather your whole family around and tell them the truth, who you are, where you come from, you tell them the whole story. Then you ask them if they know how lucky there are to be there. It all came so close to never happening. This life came so close to never happening.

Uncle Nikolai

• This is my advice to you: When you get there, figure it out who's who. Find the man nobody's protecting. A man without friends. And beat him until his eyes bleed. Let them think you are little bit crazy, but respectful, too. Respectful of the right men.

• I have been in three different prisons, Montgomery. Three different countries. And you know what I learned? I learned prison is a bad place to be.

Dialogue

Jakob Elinsky: What do we say to him?

Frank Slaughtery: We say nothin'. The guy's going to hell for seven years, what are we going to do? Wish him luck?

Frank Slaughtery: You know what a man should never ask in a Victoria's Secret shop, Jake?

Jakob Elinsky: What?

Frank Slaughtery: "Does this come in children's sizes?"

Kostya Novotny: Monty, I have beautiful woman, very nice!

Monty Brogan: Yeah, well, I'm not really in the mood for that. I've got a nice girl.

Kostya Novotny: I know, I know. Tonight is a special night. Last night as free man. I pick her out special, just for you.

Monty Brogan: The last girl you picked out special for me had three teeth, all in the back!

Jakob Elinsky: I kissed her.

Frank Slaughtery: You what?

Jakob Elinsky: My student. I, I kissed her.

Frank Slaughtery: Who are you trying to be... R. Kelly?

Frank Slaughtery: You know, you're wearing a striped shirt with a striped tie, you know that, right?

Phelan: Yeah, I do it for the ladies.

Frank Slaughtery: Oh - the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion?

Phelan: Uh, what's the big deal with the unemployment number anyway?

Frank Slaughtery: Fellan...

Phelan: It's, uh, Phelan.

Frank Slaughtery: Whatever. Look... More jobs means fewer people looking for work. Means it's harder to find good people to fill those jobs. Means you gotta raise wages to get them. Means inflation goes up. You got it?

Phelan: Yeah.

Frank Slaughtery: No, I didn't think so. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing and you're handing out junk mail.

Taglines

• Can you change your whole life in a day?

• This life was so close to never happening

• One wrong choice... one last night... 24 hours to live a lifetime

Cast

• Edward Norton - Monty Brogan
• Philip Seymour Hoffman - Jacob Elinsky
• Barry Pepper - Frank Slaughtery
• Rosario Dawson - Naturelle Riviera
• Anna Paquin - Mary D'Annunzio
• Brian Cox - James Brogan
• Tony Siragusa - Kostya Novotny