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FILM DETAILS

Certificate 15

Cast Billy Bob Thornton Halle Berry Heath Ledger Peter Boyle Sean Combs Mos Def.

Directors Marc Forster.

Screenwriters Milo Addica Will Rokos.

Running Time 115 minutes

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Monster's Ball
Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton shine in this powerful, affecting film, which is so much more than just a prison-drama.

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Plot
Corrections Officer Hank Grotowski heads the prison squad supervising Lawrence Musgrove, awaiting execution after 11 years on Death Row. Distressed by his duties, Hank's son is also on the team, while Musgrove's emotionally drained wife Leticia struggles

Review
Way to go, Halle! On one of the too-rare occasions Berry has had an opportunity to show what she can really do (memo to her agent: dangling in chains in Swordfish, not a good idea), she seizes her role as an exhausted woman at the end of her rope with such naked desperation and need that it's hard to watch - and harder to forget. Billy Bob Thornton certainly should also have been in the Oscar stakes, as he is riveting as a man of few words who initially seems unforgivably cold and harsh, but subtly and miraculously evokes understanding and pity.

Reduced to barest basics, this is a prison drama/romance, but it's about many things, all of them to do with compassion, humanity and the need for love. Fathers and sons are a major theme. Widower Hank is the son of an irredeemably selfish, nasty, racist, retired prison guard (Boyle playing the spectacularly horrid old Buck). Hank's sensitive, unloved son (Ledger's effective Sonny) is a third generation prison guard, bullied into the bitter family inheritance and rituals of small, mean, dusty lives.

They are imprisoned as surely as the cop killer sitting on Death Row.The condemned man, Musgrove (Combs doing a smart and impressive volte-face from his cool comedic role in Made), also has a browbeaten son. The bashful, ungainly boy has inherited his father's artistic talent and has eaten himself into obesity on the junk food and chocolate bars that are his only comfort.

As the sole woman to feature (besides a matter-of-fact prostitute who gets both Sonny and Hank's brisk, boorish custom), Berry's weary waitress Leticia is a bravely unflinching portrait of a woman so crushed, she's a drunk, abusive mother, with a palpably agonising need to feel something, anything.

Hank and Leticia would be no computer's dating match in a million years. However, the weight of cares and catastrophe on both of them is what makes it possible that these two, when their paths collide, could so touchingly, vulnerably, and tentatively, try to find their way back to life together.

As is so often the case with emigre directors, German-born, Swiss-raised, N.Y.U. graduate Forster brings an alert eye for specific detail and mood to the American scene. The heavy, stultifying atmosphere of the poor, rural, Southern setting dominates everything. Written by two struggling actors who showed remarkable tenacity and integrity by holding out through six frustrating years of negotiations with studios anxious to soften the script, this is a very adult, very humane drama.

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Average user rating for Monster's Ball

RE: Monster's Ball

Most depressing film ever ... More

Posted by spamandham at 16:19, 28 October 2009 | Report This Post

RE: Monster's Ball

I'd never seen this till I finally caught up with it on Film 4 recently and wasn't sure what to expect. Anyways I was moved enough to want to comment on it all I can say is Halle Berry is absolutely outstanding and it's outrageous that her talents haven't been fully utilized to this extent before or since. It doesn't speak a great deal about the quality of scripts available to leading ladies in Hollywood. Her portrayal of a virtually destroyed soul rescued from the brink by of all things ... More

Posted by Fluke Skywalker at 12:39, 28 October 2009 | Report This Post

Monster's Ball

Simply superb. A riveting drama with superb lead performances. ... More

Posted by Blue Ryan at 22:06, 13 April 2009 | Report This Post

Monster's Ball

Well...this is the most hard hitting movie i have ever seen...it really makes you think. With superb performances from the whole cast, a great story line and some truly amazing camera work Monster's Ball is A GREAT MOVIE! :D heath ledger once again proves his talent! :D:D ... More

Posted by Chimene at 20:39, 13 August 2008 | Report This Post

Halle earned her oscar!!. Billy-Bob you lucky sod ... More

Posted by Welsh Beds at 21:42, 10 February 2006 | Report This Post

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