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Monster's Ball Customer Reviews (40 - 42 of 85 Reviews)

Outstanding
Monster's Ball is a great film for fans of quality film-making.
The lead actors are extremely believable in this dark drama about a emerging romance between the an widow of an executed prisoner and his chief executioner.

Set in the rural and still segregated South, Halle Berry delivers a stunning performance as beautiful but fragile single mom made a widow when her husband dies in the electric chair.

Billy Bob Thorton is a straight-laced, bigot prison guard that seems to have no problems in executing the condemned man. His son cannot cope with the surreal scene and commits suicide when he realizes he cannot meet the expectations of his father.

The pace is agonizingly slow like the final hours of the condemned. The guard and widow are literally thrown together when a hit and run driver kills her young son. Slowly the hard man softens. The sex is direct yet sensual.

The filmmakers use artful camera angles and editing to create a mood that fits the stark storyline.

Not a film for everyone, this film will be enjoyed for those who want more than fast-paced action.

I watched it four times within 3 days of buying the DVD and I am sure I will watch it again.

Halle definitely deserved the accolades she received for this film.

This is the dance of real life
There are many things to like in this movie:
The masterful direction.
The fine performances - Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton hit all the right notes as the leading couple. Furthermore, we meet Heath Ledger in a part completely different from the pretty-boy-roles of his past, while Peter Boyle (whose I've always been a fan) depicts successfully Thornton's racist father.
The raw, realistic and intense atmosphere of the film is also a big plus - The love scene, for which many things have been written, is a perfect example of that atmosphere.

What could have probably been better:
The story, describing how the tragic occurrences in the lives of two people will finally bring them together, didn't always convince me. For example, how did Thornton's character so abruptly change from a black men's hater to someone capable of loving so passionately a black woman? There are a couple of things, which I will not reveal, that attempt to explain this reversal, but still...

In any case, for me, the real peak of the movie comes at the closing scene. If you pay close attention to the look in the eyes of Halle Berry's character, everything will make perfect sense for you.

Societal, human emotions at their most raw
Halle Berrie's accomplishment as the first African-American to win a Best Actress Oscar may have eclipsed the substance of this film, and that may be unfortunate to some extent. Here, Berrie's character of Leticia Musgrove is about to become widowed by way of her husband's execution by the Georgia Department of Corrections. In its wake, Leticia is drawn to Billy Bob Thornton's character of Hank Grotowski, a correctional officer who assists in the execution. Their attraction is strengthened but strained on both personal and social levels by the deaths of their respective children. What follows for both is an uncertain journey that evokes questions about racism, the inequities of the criminal justice system and the South's unspoken social disdain for interacial coupling. Director Marc Forster could easily have doomed his film to being another unremarkable social commentary but manages a stellar but unsettling film of substance with incredible character development. Neither Berrie nor Thornton's characters elicit much sympathy at film's start, but we actually come to feel some empathy for their lost souls and get some hope for their redemption in the film's last line, from Thornton: "I think we're gonna be alright." Not only is "Monster's Ball" difficult to watch, it's wrenching, and some scenes may actually shock, especially the one in which Berrie physically abuses her son for being overweight. In the end, though, Berrie does emerge from some kind of moral ambiguity to try to begin anew, and her performance is truly astonishing. But Thornton is no less so, and he is simply riveting! Here, he gives us yet another dimension of his obviously multi-faceted talent, and we come to feel nothing but empathy and respect for his character. More than a anti-comment on social and racial inequities, "Monster's Ball" makes that comment all the more powerful by giving us characters of incredible realism.

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