Most Rewatchable Scene
Nightclub sequence
In the discussion (15)
Approx. transcript time · 00:54:22Read transcript
- The opening credits are great and a little emotional, and the opening scene of deciding whether to save the wounded dog sets up the question of whether somebody can be saved.
- An internet theory that the wounded dog resembles America after 9/11 is mentioned but called a little too English-literature to fully buy.
- The Feds busting Monty for the drugs in his couch is highly rewatchable because Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. is essentially Clay Davis from The Wire as a drug agent.
- The big bathroom speech insults every part of New York before turning on Monty himself.
- The hosts report that Disney wanted to cut the bathroom scene and that Spike and Benioff refused, with Spike calling it one of the reasons he wanted to make the movie.
- Pepper and Hoffman looking over Ground Zero and arguing about Monty is a great scene with two great actors; the Ground Zero imagery is described as jarring and alarming, with touches like "fuck the Times, I read the Post."
- Other favorites: the bar scene with Rosario Dawson, Pepper and Hoffman where the bartender invites them to her birthday party; Pepper trying to figure out whether Dawson flipped; Monty deciding not to kill his associate and handing him to the Russians.
- Frank beating up Monty is called some of the best directing of Spike Lee's career: wide shots, silence except park sounds, and alternating slow motion and live action; it is intense rather than fun.
- The dream sequence narrated by Brian Cox of the life Monty could have had is praised; a counterview would ask to cut that fantasy montage and end on Monty's face in the car, keeping that last shot.
- Producer Craig's favorite scene in the movie is said to be the montage; the old-age makeup on Rosario Dawson and Edward Norton is praised, and the imagined kids resemble her more than him.
- Asked for a most rewatchable scene, the answer is the nightclub sequence, counted at 24 minutes from entering the club to leaving, with the sound design best heard on good headphones.
- The reply agrees: the sound was incredible on better speakers, and from the Patrice O'Neill bouncer moment through leaving the bar is the best part of the movie.
- Comparisons are drawn to busy Michael Man scenes in Collateral and Miami Vice, and Spike is called a good chaos director, as in Inside Man, though not when chaos is the point, as in Old Boy.
- The club is read as a purgatory with three levels (heaven, hell, purgatory); the film withholds the pleasure a morally unrestrained, maybe pre-9/11 movie would indulge, including the Hoffman-Pacquin encounter and the women dancing.
- While the women dance above, Norton and Pepper discuss whether his girlfriend ratted him out, with his associate pushing that suspicion; the trust-your-partner plot is always welcome.
