Brian Cox's reading of this passage is another reminder that he is not only the busiest but the best of character actors. In an extraordinary visual illustration of the monologue, we see Monty getting a job in a small town, finding a wife, starting a family, and finally, old and gray, revealing the secret of his life.
He tells his son that he could take an exit on the turnpike, head west, start over. In one of them, also from the book, his father drives Monty to prison and, in a long voiceover monologue, describes an alternative to jail. There are two other sequences where we see Lee's unique energy at work. This scene seems so typical of Spike Lee (it's like an extension of a sequence in " Do the Right Thing") that it's a surprise to find it's in the original novel-but then Benioff's novel may have been inspired by Lee's earlier film. It contains a brilliant sequence where Monty looks in the mirror of a restroom and spits out a litany of hate for every group he can think of in New York-every economic, ethnic, sexual and age group gets the f-word, until finally he sees himself in the mirror and includes himself. The screenplay is by David Benioff, based on his novel. Because he was a drunk, because his wife died, it's not all Monty's fault. His dad disapproves of drugs but has a curious way of forgiving his son: He blames himself. Both the father and the girl know where the money comes from. He has moved with Naturelle into a nice apartment. Monty has given his father money to pay off the bar's debts. Most of his customers are firemen, too, and the shadow of 9/11 hangs over them. The father, a retired fireman, runs a bar on Staten Island.
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Although he suspects that Naturelle could have been his betrayer, we see her as a good-hearted young woman who knows how to read him, who observes at a certain point in the evening that Monty doesn't want company. He has been lucky in his girlfriend, Naturelle ( Rosario Dawson), and in his father, James ( Brian Cox). Frank's verdict: "It's over." The film reflects this elegiac tone as it follows Monty's last hours of freedom. Or he can do the time, but when he comes out his life will never be the same and he will not be able to put it together in any meaningful way. Talking sadly with Jacob, Frank spells out Monty's options. They are Jacob Elinsky ( Philip Seymour Hoffman), a high school English teacher, and Frank Slaughtery ( Barry Pepper), a Wall Street trader. He dreads prison not so much because of seven lost years, but because he fears he will be raped. He stayed in too long, someone ratted on him, and the feds knew exactly where to look for the cocaine.
He should have gotten out sooner-taken the money and run. He doesn't seem like the type, especially not on the morning of his last day, when an old customer approaches him and he wearily advises him, "Take your jones somewhere else." Monty is played by Edward Norton as a man who bitterly regrets his greed. He associates with bad guys-the Russian Mafia of New York-but it's hard to picture him at work. The first time we see him, he's rescuing a dog that has been beaten half to death. He is thoughtful, well-spoken, a nice guy.
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