Rating: 
Summary: And that's being generous...
Review: Somebody needed to tell the writers, directors, and producers of this film that just because your movie explores a controversial issue in a confrontational way still doesn't automatically qualify it for par excellence filmmaking. Despite P. Diddy's abysmal debut performance, even the talent of Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thornton, and Peter Boyle can't salvage what is generally a boring, uninspired, and predictable script that completely fails in intermingling dramatic taboos with brief gasps of levity. Besides, wasn't this topic already dealt with in "Jungle Fever"? Why does Hollywood insist on using the film medium to explore "American values" and educate the general populace about what is appropriate and morally respectable in a modern, liberal, ethnically diverse state. I mean, while where at it, why don't we start up a new franchise here. The sequel can be a romance between Rudolph Hess and Anne Frank. Let the racial healing begin!!! America needs to get realistic about political correctness or else we're all going to be walking on egg-shells. Certainly, film's like this do Americans a great disservice by elevating the issue to Philadelphia-esque status--another horrible attempt to cash in on social inequality, this time in the guise of gay rights activism. Dramatizing "interracial" relationships only reinforces the taboo. It's when we can all say "what's the big deal" and not take notice that we've achieved true integration. Junk like this is fuel for the guilty white liberal fire out to save the world with their bleeding hearts. Unfortunately, many people saw merit in this film for whatever reason. This is definitely one of those love it or leave it films. You'll either take to the characters and appreciate the cultural subtext as the rather unorthadox love-story unfolds, or you'll just roll your eyes from scene to scene while making frequent glances at your watch and mentally asking yourself "is it over yet?" By the way, in case your wondering, this review was written by a 23-year-old male university student in cultural anthropology who "happens to be" Asian. =)
Rating:
Summary: Puhleeeeeze
Review: So I just finished watching this depressing, slow movie and the entire time I kept waiting to see an academy award winning performance from Halle Berry. Keith Ledger did a better job for crying out loud!... The moral of the story is pretty good...
Rating:
Summary: not a winner
Review: I'm sorry but I found nothing worthwile about this movie. It to me is just another film about a dysfunctional family. Thorton's charcter seemed to be more upset about the whole in the chair after his son kills himself in front of him than about what had just happened in front of him and when his father makes a nasty comment about his new love interest that he finds offensive he conviently puts " Old Dad" in a home. This movie is supposed to be close to real life? Aren't there enough dysfunctional familes already, why does Hollywood think we need see them on the big screen?
Rating: 
Summary: Understatement savoured
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful & Humane
Review: This is truly a powerful human film. All and I mean all the actors are great in this film and I think the director of the film Marc Forster deserves a good amount of the credit for bringing the best performances in his actors. If you consider film art and you like intelligent, realistic stories with brilliant acting and directing then this film is for you. If you're into sex and violence, well it has some of that too. I consider this and "In the Bedroom" the best films of the year.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected Classic
Review: It's hard to find a more emotionally stirring film than this, a true social study peice. The whole first half of the movie is just a complete downer, that really pulls at all your strings. On top of the great story, it is a wonderfully photographed film, and it resonates in your subconcious days after watching. I love it, you'll love it. Breathtaking.
Rating:
Summary: Understated and haunting portrait of an unlikely pair
Review: Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) is a corrections officer who has always led a controlled and rather unemotional life in the modern South, a place time seems to have forgotten. Hank doesn't say much but his actions say plenty about him -the hard looks he gives his son, the unflinching way he handles the routines of his job, the racial prejudice which seems sewn to his soul.
As the movie opens, Hank is about to oversee the execution of an inmate (Sean Combs). Leticia (Halley Berry) is the inmate's wife and this is the role of her career so far, one Berry plays without make-up, as a plain, hardscrabble woman who tries to make the best of her life. It was a courageous move for her to tackle this role and one that has paid off.
Shortly after the execution of her husband, Leticia is faced with another tragedy and Hank arrives on the scene, reluctantly coming to her aid. Somehow, against his instincts, he finds a kindred soul in this woman and slowly, very slowly, the two form a bond - of sorts. Both Hank and Leticia have never expected much from life and they are both admittedly flawed parents. Their hurt is palpable and yet once they find each other they go forward, not dramatically, not with a clear sense of resolution or even hope but with what I can only call a will to survive and a hunger for connection - in the face of bleakness and hardship. I would say more but I think it would be unfair to describe the revelations and surprises in this film prematurely.
I will add, however, some of what I found stunning about this film. The understated, abbreviated, language and realistic worlds of Hank and Leticia. The way small changes in each of them seem like major victories. The miracle of two such different people connecting and making something better for a time. The need that each feels for the other, a need that overcomes a lifetime of prejudice (and it is another small miracle that their connection seems believable). The musical score which suggests the emotions behind the unspoken words in this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy It... just Rent It...
Review: Don't buy this movie - I'm glad I didn't. Rent it first, then decide for yourself.
I thought I would like it... but to my surprise I didn't! Maybe it was because of all the attention it got when Halle Berry won the award for it... which I really don't agree with now either, since I've seen the movie for myself. She was good, but no it wasn't good enough to win best actress. Alot of past best actress winner's would have never even taken a roll like that. If that's the best she can do... well, I wouldn't be so proud of that... award or no award. ... so don't buy it... !!! (Hope this saves someone some $$.)
Rating:
Summary: Oscar for Halle??
Review: It's becoming so obvious that the Oscars are political. Totally Political. I believe Halle Berry is a very talented actress and have enjoyed her performances in the past but this film left me empty. The story, while dealing with serious subject matter, was comrpomised with a thin thin story. Billy Bob Tornton merely showed up, Halle Berry was forced to overact to make up for a zero character and the explicit yet boring sex scene was a cheap ploy to get audiences into the theaters. Quite simply, a waste of time for the audience and an Oscar for Halle Berry in a performance that should be an embarrassment.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most powerful dramatic films ever made. Period!
Review: USA Today's review of "Monster's Ball" said it best when it wrote that the film "... proves that Halle Berry had a spectacular performance inside her waiting to be unleased, and that Billy Bob Thornton had a third one in his awesome 2001 stockpile." That about says it all. The entire cast of this film is excellent, the storyline is moving, but it's Berry's Oscar-winning (and very well-deserved, I might add) turn that is the jewel in this movie's crown. Not only did she seemingly pull that performance from her very bone marrow, but she has finally shed that "just another pretty face in Hollywood" image that seemed to plague her career from the very beginning. Berry proved to the entertainment industry that she is indeed a bona fide ACTRESS. "Monster's Ball"will make you laugh, cry, and angry in its brutal realism. Rent and/or buy this film - you will definitely get your money's worth.
|
