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Monster's Ball Customer Reviews (73 - 75 of 85 Reviews)

Understatement savoured
Monster's Ball is a colloquial term for the night of good ol' boy togetherness before an exection. In this sensitive, quietly shocking film, we the audience make up the Monster's Ball. We sit in expensive theater seats and observe the deceptively complex lives of a small town in the South. The time is now; the bigotries and wasted mores are eternal. With deft assurance we come to understand a male family of Corrections officers - Peter Boyle as a gasping, respiratory failure grandfather, Billy Bob Thornton as a dutiful father who happens to be the current active executioner, his son Heath Ledger, a sensitive young man wholly out of tune with racial bias and capital punishment. Then there is the one to be executed, a wondrous portrayal by Sean Combs, his obese "never make it looking like that in a Black America" son who hides in candy bars, and the resplendent Halle Berry as the wife/mother, victim of society in more ways then one. The interplay of these extraordinary actors (along with a supporting cast of officers, neighbors, hookers, waitresses so strong that they each could carry a film) results in a story so deeply tender without resorting to bathos that we can only read the final credits in awe and disbelief that life, in many places, is so difficult, yet the human spirit so enduring. This is a very fine film in every way.

One difficult movie to watch
I rented this movie after the Academy Awards because I was curious to see Hally Berry's performance. Needless to say, the content of this movie was so difficult to watch, I had to turn it off. That's not to say that the acting was bad, but overall the story was dreadful.

One of the worst parts of this movie was when Hally Berry's character catches her son eating and stuffing the food wrappers in the cushions of the couch, and then screams at him because of his weight and drags him to the bathroom where she forces him onto the scale, all the while telling him how fat he is.

That is a horrible way to treat anyone, especially a child, and it was after that scene that I turned it off. I would not recommend this movie to anyone, for any reason.

Last 12 Months a Tour de Force by Thornton
I knew Billy Bob Thornton was talented when I saw him for the first time in "Sling Blade," which he starred in plus wrote and directed. Little did I suspect though that he was hiding a talent with such range under that semi nerd appearance. In the last 12 months, I've seen him reinvent himself so many times that I couldn't tell you who Billy Bob Thornton really is (Bandits and The Man Who Wasn't There, to name two). And, boy, does he not shy away from a difficult, even potentially hateful role. In this film, Thornton and his son (Heath Ledger) are the death row guards for Halle Berry's husband who is about to be executed. Far from that execution's being the main event of the movie, it serves to set off a chain reaction of events that show the two characters, played by Thornton and Berry, in depth as human beings with multi facets. Each of them has a son and each could be called a bad parent. Each has a scene with his/her respective son that will take you way past any comfort zone. Then, there's Thornton's relationship with his father, played by Peter Boyle, a truly despicable man. With all these jagged edges, it is surprising that the movie is at heart a relationship movie about Thornton and Berry as a couple and not a film about death row or parents and sons. Berry is outstanding and certainly did an Oscar worthy performance. The only other film I've seen her in is "Swordfish". Many people might not even guess that this is the same actress. As for Thornton, he is that rarity, a triple or quadruple threat talent: he can act (comedy and drama equally), write (The Gift and Slingblade), direct, sing, drum. I guess the only question is, Can He Dance? If he can't, give him a few lessons and I'm sure we'll see him in a Fred Astaire remake next.

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