The film poses a question, too: "Do we throw away the things that have done bad or do we keep them and make them good?"

It is quite certain that both Spike Lee and David Benioff were intent on making their respective stories' ending ambiguous for open-ended (and open-minded) interpretation.

This is useful for the practical purposes of not letting down the people who have taken their time to immerse themselves in the story (both the book and the film). There are those who believe in Monty's acceptance of his fate and going to prison and there are those who root for Monty and see a way out for him in the end.

The themes of fate and destiny, past and the future well interleave with varying degrees of acceptance for all these amongst the characters involved.

I can bet that many people understood that this particular story element would lead to his going to prison.

While Monty is the central figure in all of this, some viewers might easily disregard how the closest people to Monty accept his fate.

Frank has worked his butt off for most of his life to earn a so-called comfortable life, while severely lacking it. Jacob, who was born into wealth, is much too convenient to use his full potential. Both have a stressful job and no steady partner and both crave for something (or rather someone) that they can't have.

Neither do Frank and Jacob have a proper private life: Jacob, because of his limited and often impossible choices (women who are much too young for his age); Frank, because of all the choice he has. We know little about both friends' parents. It's indicative that we aren't given a glimpse of them, because neither guy's parents are worth it: Jacob is ashamed of being born into wealth and Frank consumes as much wealth as possible, because he hasn't had that opportunity in earlier life. I can only infer that neither of them has a good relationship with their parents.

Unlike Frank and Jacob, Monty has everything that they don't: A beautiful wife (whom Frank probably desires), good parents, a nice apartment and an easy life. Such a situation usually elicits jealousy in peers.

Suddenly, the tables are turned and Monty loses everything and is about to enter great misery himself, while in terms of friends, he is survived by Frank and Jacob, who have had to live with some degree of misery all their life anyway.

Frank and Jacob both accept Monty and his fate much the same way they accept life. They are diametrically different, but still regarded by Monty as his best of friends, despite disagreements with each other.

Monty's fate is where their views fall apart (except for their attachment to Monty):

* Jacob would accept Monty in any shape or form, he'd still be ready to see Monty, even if he were a different person after those seven years -- they will meet when he comes back and that's all that matters to Jacob. His commitment to Monty [i]appears[/i] to hold a good degree of valour -- after all, this is Jacob's idea of being there for someone. When thinking about this, I came to a surprising conclusion that Jacob perhaps wouldn't care about what would happen to his friend -- as if he didn't mind. On another hand, Jacob's indifference appears to have some logic in it, as Jacob's own life is miserable anyway; Seeing Monty after seven years would somehow pose a reversal of roles, whereby Jacob would then be (see himself) in a better position. Would that be the moment where Jacob sees himself as a caring person? All of this well explains why Frank was so utterly irritated at Jacob's seeming indifference of 'we'll see him again after seven years'.

A more good-natured explanation of Frank's irritation would be, that Jacob, a person usually secluded and more a stranger to the world, was simply not aware of what the conditions in prisons are. But Jacob is at such an age that he should be aware of what the are conditions in correctional facilities.

To me, Jacob appears to have accepted the situation the way it is, because in the face of the situation, he feels powerless and thus unable to help Monty.

* Frank's awareness of the hardship that his best friend is very likely to put up with in the pen makes him even more caring and mindful of Monty and his fate during those years. That is why Frank is so vehemently against accepting Monty in any other than his current, unviolated form. Of course, despite what we've heard earlier, Frank does later tell Monty that he will be there for him, too.

As a friend, Frank's care of Monty appears (emphasis mine) to be the most genuine. I have understood it this way that Frank is the particular type of person, who, despite his own miseries and shortcomings, deeply cares about his best friend's happiness and does not want to see his best friend in misery. That may be a notion of happiness by proxy, whereby a not-so-happy friend is more preoccupied with maintaining his friend's happiness in order to have some peace of mind on his own. This heavily contributes to Frank's need to preserve in Monty something that he himself has never attained, but which Monty has already reached.

Frank's strongly expressed explanation to Jacob of an impossibility of ever seeing Monty again meant two things to me:
* One is that Frank is somehow aware that Monty or at least his father has a secret plan. This meant to me that Frank cares so much about Monty that he doesn't want to see the essence of his friend destroyed, albeit for a heavy price of never seeing Monty again, but still having the peace of mind of knowing that Monty is alive and well. If the prison system were not violent, Frank wouldn't be so much worried about Monty's well-being there, because he'd have the peace of mind of knowing that Monty would only be slightly different (=better) after he came out. Maybe people wouldn't be hatching plans at all. What irritates Frank is that Jacob doesn't understand the finer points of all of this.
* The darker side of such an explanation is indeed that Monty wouldn't be the same anymore. Whilst taking into account the happiness-by-proxy part, I realised that the changed Monty's condition wouldn't be something to aspire for anymore -- Frank's own (personal) situation would be at least a decade ahead of Monty's by then and it would in turn take a lot of time for Monty to reclaim his life to any level comparable to his situation before the bust.

In having and writing down such thoughts, I was thinking of dynamics of friendship and how people see themselves in them.

In terms of interpersonal relatonships,
I saw Jacob as a friend to Monty because of everything Jacob is not.
I saw Frank as a friend to Monty because of everything (or everyone) Monty is (or has).
It may as well be otherwise. And Monty remained friends with them because of much that he wasn't and they were.

I've read from a certain dating book that relationships of drastically different people may often be built on the notion of shadow selves -- which is a need to associate oneself with the people we ourselves wish to be.

Monty and Kostya found the dog and Monty was the one to save the dog -- before it was too late -- and not Kostya. To allegorize, Monty and Kostya are the two sides of America, the good one (Monty, with some of his underworldly strings attached) and the bad one (Kostya, the nice-on-the-surface underworld guy).

Monty is a native citizen of the U.S., brought up having many of the good values of Americans by default (desite dealing with drugs), while Kostya is not a U.S. native and is more about himself. Naturelle is a second- or third-generation immigrant offspring whom Monty adopts as his wife.

The native Monty does the correct thing by saving the dog, while the non-native Kostya doesn't care. At least some portion of what Monty gained he hath also spread outwards; Anything good that Kostya gets stays with him and does not spread outwards.

The same now repeats with Monty's father: It's Monty's real friends and family who make sacrifices and save him, while Kostya (who I understand tipped the off the DEA) doesn't. Kostya sacrifices Monty to save himself from going to prison, while Monty's family and friends sacrifice parts of their own lives (including any future part with Monty) to save Monty. They ultimately know that they are in for some trouble, but are also aware of the fact that they can live past the troubles they encounter. Monty's father is especially aware of this, if that only saves his only son.

Monty's saving the dog and the later story of his father's speech reflected to me that it was his father (=family) who saved him, because that's what good family members do, when someone is in real trouble. But it's not just Monty's father who's in on the plan, but Frank, too. Monty in his lifetime up to his last day on bail had helped people (by keeping his dad's bar afloat) and they are doing the good thing and helping him back.

The father's monologue clearly states that it's the bigger guys the authorities are after. In addition, he knows that he may get arrested and lose the bar if Monty vanishes. He accepts this, because he is old and is near the end of his life, but can't accept the loss of his son, as Monty is still young and has a full life before him.

If Monty is gone, the authorities have to get the bigger guys anyway to save face. Frank knows that Monty might escape, and that is why he is so adamant to imply to Jacob that they are never ever going to see him again. Jacob doesn't understand this and is about the only person to accept Monty's fate of going to prison, as Jacob has walked the straight line all his life and despite Monty's transgressions, doesn't even consider that Monty (or anyone else close to him) could deviate from that straight line even at the last minute.

Jacob expects to see Monty in whichever form after he has served his prison term. Frank wants Monty to still be the same Monty, even if the price of this would be not seeing him ever again.

We never see or hear Monty telling to go for an exit, but I remember the old car on the bridge at the very end, which at least to me means that Monty did go for an exit.