Monster's Ball (2001)
Grade: B+
Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Heath Ledger, and Peter Boyle
Director: Marc Forster
Rated R for strong sexual content, violence, and language


This review contains extreme spoilers. If you have not seen "Monster's Ball", do not read this review.

There is question about whether, last March, the historical Oscar win by Halle Berry for Best Actress in “Monster’s Ball” occurred only because Berry was black. After all, wasn’t it kind of interesting that we were no longer allowed to say the Academy was racist, since Denzel Washington also won for “Training Day”? Here’s my opinion on the situation: Washington earned his Oscar, but the reason Berry was crying so hard may have been because she knew her performance was not the reason for the gold.

Berry’s performance in “Monster’s Ball” is not great. It is barely even good. It is so over-the-top that I found myself mentally commenting on the understated performance by Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate”. Berry doesn’t do too much damage with her southern accent—it’s the fact that she plays Leticia Musgrove, her character, like she was told to have an emotional breakdown in each scene (for all I know, maybe she was). My God, I could even swear that she’s in tears as Billy Bob Thornton is having sex with her. Maybe this is supposed to be humorous, like Leslie Mann’s sexual weeping in “Stealing Harvard”.

That said, “Monster’s Ball” is a very good movie. I’m even overstating my opinion on Berry’s performance—it isn’t terrible. She has her touching moments. It’s just that her abrasive emotions seem unrealistic and unlikely. Her character is interesting because the rest of the movie makes her interesting, not because of Berry—oh well; the point is, at least she’s interesting. “Monster’s Ball” has flaws in its believability (when it comes to plausibility, the character parallels are slightly shaky), restraint (Berry), and direction (I think those birds during the sex were supposed to mean something, but why not let the message speak for itself rather than through pretentious symbolism?), but overall it’s a solid, intriguing film.

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) is not a very good person. He treats his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger, who is actually very good in his small role) like complete dirt, and he mirrors many of the attitudes of his father, Buck (Peter Boyle), who is a blatant racist. Hank and Sonny are death row prison guards, and they have just put Lawrence Musgrove (Sean “P[uff]. Di[a]ddy” Combs [Lopez], also of “Made”) to death. Leticia (Berry) is his wife. Sonny dies; Leticia’s fat son dies. The two (meaning Leticia and Hank) are then attracted to each other. Why, exactly? Is it the sex? Doubtful. Their relationship is too strong. What the film seems to think is this (and I’m gonna trust the film, since the characters are its creations): they are attracted to each other because they are both in the same place, emotionally. They bond not because of hormone-driven passion (although there is plenty of that) or even out of love for each other—they are brought together in their grief like a magnet is pulled towards metal. They both need consolation, and they’re getting it. Their relationship is one of the most intriguing of recent films.

Maybe the intrigue comes from the fact that we want more; the characters aren’t developed to the full extent that they would have been in a film like, say, “Magnolia” (then again, I’m happy with “Monster’s Ball” ’s length of 112 minutes). One of the only reasons we end up knowing Hank the way we know him is Billy Bob Thornton’s passionate performance. His performance in “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (which was released a month or two earlier than this film) is a lot better, but he exhibits more emotion in this role than almost any other actor could have given. However, sometimes we aren’t quite sure what to think of Hank. And why should we be? One minute he’s shooting at “niggers” who have come to see Sonny, and the next minute he’s deeply in love with a black woman. We could accept that he believes that love defies the color of one’s skin, if only his racism weren’t so prominent in the early scenes.

And yet, there are scenes of startling emotional impact. Scenes that make up for the inconsistency and problems in other scenes. The very best in the film (and one of the best I’ve seen in months) is the scene where Sonny commits suicide. “Do you love me?” he asks Hank desperately. “You don’t love me, do you?” Hank, despite being at gunpoint, is honest: “No. Never have.” When Sonny replies, “Well, I’ve always loved you”, it doesn’t come across as corny, contrived, or needlessly bleak; it comes across as a smashingly tragic event. The power in scenes like that almost makes up for the obvious and eye-rollingly dramatic excess displayed in other scenes. During the sex scene, Berry tells Hank that she wants him to make her “feel gooooood”, but damned if I didn’t think, because of her vocal delivery, that Hank was having sex with a dying giraffe in dire need of good feelings.

But there’s just so much great in “Monster’s Ball” that I hate to criticize it, especially in a manner as harsh as in the previous few sentences I’ve typed. There is true filmmaking craft in many of the film’s ways of handling certain turns of events. When Leticia finds out that Hank was responsible for the death of her husband, she takes it as a blow, but the film wisely avoids a scene of confrontation. The film, despite all of the depression, ends on a note of hope, and like the imprint of all great films, I was left in my seat, staring dumbly at the credits in awe. “Monster’s Ball” is not quite a great film, but you see what I’m saying.

One thing “Monster’s Ball” is not (it is a lot of things and it is not a lot of things, but this one is definite) is entertaining. Involving, maybe. I didn’t want to stop watching it. But like the superior “In the Bedroom”, it is as emotionally draining as ‘entertainment’ can be. Leticia and Hank walk around after their respective tragedies pretty depressed (him generally unfazed at his loss, but somehow not really there; her very much fazed by her loss), but we never even get the sense that they have been happy at any point in their life, at all, ever, and they are certainly not happy when they are together, even though they look at it as an escape from their misery. Watching a movie about people who never seem to be at joy with themselves, we can hardly be expected to find any joy. No matter how much I liked “Monster’s Ball”, it sure is a good way to put a thundercloud over your Saturday afternoon.

A final note about “Monster’s Ball” concerns, of course, Halle Berry. This review has contained a lot of bashing towards her, whether it be about her facial expressions, her emotional public award acceptance, or acting ability (on that subject: if it is any consolation, it looks like she may have earned her Oscar judging from the trailer alone of “Die Another Day”). Consider this an official apology: she is a beautiful woman. A very beautiful woman. Her beauty contributes one of the film’s more notable flaws, although even more notable is the fact that it is not her fault. The camera cannot stop lingering on her beautifully beautiful body. She wears short shorts and tight tank tops through the whole movie, and sue me if I’m the only one (and I know dern well that I’m not) that thought this took some of the credibility out of her character, who was supposed to be trailer trash with a crappy life. Oh well. I’m not sure what I expected; we all know P. Diddy only dates the best.


-Alex, September 2002