Rating: 
Summary: Reality !
Review: This was a good movie but very dark. Don't buy this if you like only "feel good" movies. This is more of a reality story.
Rating: 
Summary: Patterns to be broken
Review: This movie is about a man's attempt to break the bad patterns of life that smothers all the good things. Make you think how many people are actually actively doing the same thing. Racism is not really the center of this movie. It is just one pattern the character needs to break. Once he realizes he doesn't have to live the way he always lived, the racism, the indiffience, the violent behaviors, are all blown away. The beautiful things in life get a chance to emerge. How simple, yet how rare.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthy effort undone by flawed script
Review: The first third of this film is the best, as it shows in relentless, harrowing detail how the execution of a condemned black man (Sean "Puffy" Combs) rips apart the lives, first, of his struggling wife and son (Halle Berry and Coronji Calhoun), second, of the father and son correctional officers (Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger) assigned to the prisoner. In the aftermath, Ledger commits suicide, Calhoun is killed in a hit-and-run, and Thornton and Berry, both having lost their children, find themselves drawn together by shared catastrophe, two wounded souls clinging to each other. It's a tidy formula and one would like it to work. Berry has the flashier role and makes the most of it, earning her Oscar, despite the fact that her physical beauty takes away from her credibility as a downtrodden single mother. Thornton, though, has the more difficult job of convincing the viewer that a rigid, unfeeling white man whose emotional abuse drives his son to suicide is capable of evolving into a tender, compassionate protector of his former prisoner's widow. It's a measure of the actor's skill that he almost pulls it off. In the end, however, the film is undone by a script too full of unlikely coincidences, gratuitously prolonged sex scenes and a seriously flawed premise. The idea that a poor, struggling African-American woman would latch on to a white man as her savior--beg him to "make her feel good"--leaves a bad taste in the mouth which not all of the actors' and producers' skill can quite cover.
Rating:
Summary: Over-rated
Review: Although the acting is quite good, the story is too heavy-handed. The power of the film relies on a sequence of events that flirts with implausibility. The two main characters (Berry and Thornton) live through so many horrific events and overcome such dire circumstances that, by the end, the story doesn't have much credibility. One should not have to suspend their disbelief when a movie such as this presents such a stark picture under the guise of realism. I would agree that the movie carries a strong emotional charge and that it is deeply sincere in its portrayal of the characters and their lives. (The sincerity of the film, I suspect, is what fueled the acclaim.) Unfortunately, sincerity does not a great file make....
Rating: 
Summary: The most unintentionally funny movie of the year!
Review: While watching this I was reminded of a conversation I had with a friend of mine. He had watched a horrible made for TV movie in which the dramatic climax was a wheelchair bound man screaming while being pushed into a swimming pool. Both movies try to make you feel for their characters and end up failing horribly. In the scene where Halle Berry vents her frustrations by abusing her son. She yells at him about his obesity and tells him not to eat any more candy. When she leaves the room the boy removes a candy bar from under a pillow. I broke out laughing, not at the action, but at the fact that this was the movie that roger ebert picked as the best film of the year. In any other movie that WOULD have been a joke. The other flaw of the movie is that it uses racial tension as a theme, but does nothing with it of any significants, the movie would have been the same if Berry's character was white.
Rating:
Summary: MONSTER'S BALL
Review: It was nothing like I expected but everything I needed.
It's dark,sad and sometimes hopeful but to it's very
heart...it reveals a deep and unspoken "truth"
Rating:
Summary: Raw, Real & Unflinching
Review: Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) is a career prison guard in a state that still uses the electric chair for its method of execution. His father (Peter Boyle) before him was a prison guard and his son (Heath Ledger) has followed in his footsteps. Hank and his son oversee the execution of a mild-mannered prisoner who has artistic abilities that were never honed or recognized when he was still a free man. Hank has no idea how he will later be affected by circumstances in the prisoner's family, much less his own. Hank soon loses his son to tragedy, but he's been trained by his own father to not only follow in his footsteps in being a prison guard, but also as being a narrow-minded, bigoted, selfish and repugnant father figure who has never appreciated his own child and almost seems unaffected, if not relieved that his son has died. After the death of his son he has a chance encounter with Leticia (Halle Berry) who has just tragically lost her own son. While the viewer knows who's who, Leticia has no idea that Hank oversaw the execution of her husband (yes, the same one), and he doesn't realize who she is, either. Hank continues to bump into Leticia and gives her rides to her home after her car breaks down... which ultimately leads to one of the wildest sex scenes you will probably ever see in a movie that hasn't been rated X or at least NC-17. The scene is powerful, but is uncomfortably long an it really intensifies the sense that you are a voyeur, if not a participant, in these scenes. It is filmed in such a way, that you feel like you're peeking through the crack of a door... powerful scene, but almost too powerful. The film does not preach... while we see all sorts of things that would be normally highly controversial or at least fodder for a heated debate, none of it is presented as an opinion. You see mixed-race relationships, bigotry, child abuse, obesity, execution and suicide - but the film does not present these topics as though there is a way you should or should not feel about any of these issues and it's up to you to decide how to view & interpret. Halle Berry won a well-deserved Oscar for her performance - and not for the sex scene as some critics have suggested. When Halle Berry acts, she becomes that person - a 3D person, not just a flat character. She does more than put her heart upon her sleeve and if a scene demanded it, she could yank out her own heart and take a bite out of it. The sex scenes alone, in my opinion, should have merited an NC-17 rating. No one under 18 has any business seeing this film... even if their parents are either too [poor] to get a baby sitter or else are too stupid to know better. I get mildly enraged when I see parents sauntering into a movie like this with 8-year olds tagging along. When I saw this film in the theater, there were a number of young people there - none of which should have been exposed to the intense level of violence or explicit sex at such tender ages. Other than my problems w/ the rating, I recommend the film to any adult who wants to see real, raw & unflinching reality and acting at its best.
Rating:
Summary: A very dusty movie
Review: There is a yellowish tint throughout a lot of this movie, giving it that dusty "i'm me and that's that" kind of feel to the movie. Berry gives a monstrous performance and Thortons performance is just as great but is lost in the wake of Berry. I must warn the readers about the very "disturbing, yet I can't look away" love scene between the two, it is creepy. I must also say that it has one of the most satisfying endings to any movie... but that's just my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Tries too hard
Review: Monster's Ball is definitely one of the most contreversial of last year. The film's performers are all at the top of their game, especially Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton, even Sean " Puff Daddy" Combs does a fine job. The only problem with it is that all the tragic events and mishaps are plugged into the first two halfs of the film. And when the final act comes around you almost feel cheated, or disillusioned because the sheer power of the first two acts are absent. You almost feel as if the film should have been finished awhile ago. Still for most of the way through this was a great movie, definiteley among the top ten of last year.
Rating:
Summary: Fine Film With an Exemplary Cast
Review: This simple tale of two lonely finding each other may not rank as one of the great films of all time, but it works as an outstanding character study. Not only are Billy Bob and Halle brilliant, they are supported by the always-capable Peter Boyle, Heath Ledger as Thornton's son, and a heart wrenching, albeit brief, turn from rapper Sean Combs. And to those critics of Berry's Oscar, I say "WHY NOT???"
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