I saw 25th Hour and was impressed. My question is, "How did we all get so immune to the horrors of movie reality, that I actually enjoyed a film that featured a drug dealer as a hero, a pedophile as a sympathetic character, a teenaged Lolita, a coward as best friend, a useless father figure, and a love intrest who is never to be trusted?"
That's Spike Lee for ya'....
Do you want only characters who are saintly cardboard cutouts? Where's the drama in that? The best fiction, from Shakespeare on down, deals with the positive aspects of fallen people and the negavtive aspects of good people. I think the reason '25th Hour' was so good is that Lee was working from another's person's screenplay which he had to stick to. He could just do what he does best which is photograph New York City. That movie was in and out of theaters in about 3 weeks. It's a shame people missed it.