Monster's Ball: Movie & DVD Review

(Originally posted 2003)

With two major, unexpected twists buried deep within its script, a superb, Academy Award-nominated performance from Halle Berry and a director eager to peel away the layers of bigotry, racism and hate ingrained in a small Georgia town, Marc Forster's "Monster's Ball" is one of those rare contemporary movies that lingers in the mind and doesn't let go.

The story itself is like a bruise, but don't expect it to heal. “Monster’s Ball” remains open and raw to the end, leaving audiences to sort out for themselves all that’s taken place without any nudging from Forster or assistance from Kilo Addica’s and Will Rokos’ understated script.

The film stars Billy Bob Thornton as Hank Grotowski, a death row corrections officer who lives with his mean-spirited father, Buck (Peter Boyle)--a former corrections officer himself and now an unapologetic racist and misogynist--in a home that’s as battered and as broken as their own lives and relationship.

Living with them is Hank’s son Sonny (Heath Ledger), who unwittingly shares his father’s favorite prostitute and works alongside him on death row.

Together, these three generations of men represent a changing South, with the roots of racism buried less deep in Sonny, a sensitive, brooding young man who unleashes the full weight of his father’s rage when he becomes physically ill just moments before putting a black man (Sean Combs) to death by electrocution.

Furious that his son would ruin this man’s last walk, Hank explodes, which leads to a jarring series of events that can’t be revealed here.

For most directors, capturing the Grotowskis’ story would have been ambitious enough. But Forster has other ideas in mind, and changes his film’s course and tone by interweaving the lives of Leticia (Berry) and her morbidly obese son, Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), into the mix.

It was Leticia’s husband and Tyrell’s father who Hank executed, though none immediately know this. When tragedy pulls Hank and Leticia together, it seems that this black woman who doesn’t trust white men—and this white man who has been taught to hate blacks and women—are about to move into a life-altering interracial affair. In each other, they recognize a loneliness and a despair that crosses color lines.

It’s what they do with that recognition—and how they come to terms with what it could potentially mean for the rest of their lives—that turns “Monster’s Ball” into such a quietly gripping, unforgettable film.

Grade: A

(Note: Berry won the award)