Rating: 
Summary: Mine is the Only Opinion You Need
Review: Sure it's depressing - it's about a depressing subject! Anybody who's complained about this should have read the dang box before they watched it.As for the detractors of Halle Berry's performance, they need to give up their dislike of Halle Berry and look at her performance with better eyes. I've never particularly liked Halle Berry. I'd never seen anything she's done to judge her as a good actress, but she's very good here. If you've ever heard her talk, seen her as herself, you should know this. Watch the scene where she's drunk with Billy Bob. Her accent and the drunken way she talks, very un-Halle. Her performance is very real, very fragile, very vulnerable. She can't help it if she's gorgeous. Yes, if they were going for ultimate realism, they'd have picked a plainer actress, but this is the movies. Men can be ugly in films, but women cannot. Until this changes, we'll have to settle for good actresses who are also gorgeous. Billy Bob is very good, and Heath Ledger was very surprising after his pretty-boy stints in Patriot and that knight-thing he did. I was sorry to see him leave the film so early. This could have been over-the-top melodrama, and they had the good sense to understate it. It's just a darned good film, touching on the issues of hate - self-hate, racial hate, the hate of life itself, sorrow and retribution, and the tragedies of thought that are passed from generation to generation. It's not perfect, but it's better than most.
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Summary: Eric Benet Is A Punk!
Review: He let his wife do THIS? He should have his a** whipped and kicked out of the Brotherhood of Brothers!
Rating:
Summary: Best Movie Of 2001 And The Best Movie Of The Decade
Review: Marc Forster's Monster's Ball Is A unique A challenging film. Halle Berry Performance is the best I have seen since Marlon Brando in LAST TANGO IN PARIS and James Spader In CRASH. Billy Bob Thornton performance is simply amazing. As for the rest of the cast Peter Boyle, Hieth Ledger, and Sean Combs there perfomance's where also brillent. But Halle Berry's is the one which stick's out the most she desevred that oscer way more than anybody else did. This film is very good and is one of my personel favorit's its by far the best film of the decade the only film that I liked about the same was The War Zone. This film is not a film for childern this is a very adult movie and contains explist sex scenes,nudity,violence,language, and strong adult themes. One word somes up this film WOW.
Rating:
Summary: Best Movie Of 2001 and The Best Movie Of The Decade
Review: Marc Froster's Monster's Ball is the best movie I have seen in the last decade. This movie is brillent and some of the best acting I have seen in a long time. Halle Berry's performance is the best I have seen since Marlon Brando In Last Tango In Paris and Billy Bob Thornton is simply amazing. As far as the rest of the cast there performances to are brillent Sean Combs,Peter Boyle, Kieth Ledger, and everybody else I forgot to mention there's to is brillent. This is going by my other film that is Equely good The War Zone. This film is not for childern This is a very adult movie and is for adults only. This Movie Is one word WOW. Warning: This Film Is Rated R For an Extremely Long Explist Sex Scene,Strong Violence,Nudity,Strong Sexuality, and Strong Language.
Rating: 
Summary: WHERE ARE THE MONSTERS?
Review: THE ONLY MONSTERS IN MONSTERS BALL ARE THE DEPRESSED CHARACTERS. THE STORY SEEMS TO BE GOING IN A # OF DIRECTIONS, AND ENDS UP NO WHERE. HALLE BARRY'S PERFORMANCE IS GREAT, ALTHOUGH BETTER SUITED FOR A SUPPORTING OSCAR. HER PART WAS NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR AN OSCAR IN A LEADING ROLE. I CAN NOT RECOMMEND MONSTERS BALL ON BERRY'S GOOD WORK ALONE, AND BELIEVE ME IT'S THE ONLY HIGHLIGHT HERE. IT IS BEYOND ME HOW THIS DEPRESSING FILM ENDED UP ON SO MANY CRITIC'S TOP 10 LISTS.
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Summary: Movingly Raw and Beautiful
Review: It goes to show how blind some moviegoers are in their lament that last year was an awful year for movies. In my humble opinion, last year was one of the best for movies, seeing as it was one where traditional blockbusters failed to deliver and audiences were called upon to find a bit more originality and ingenuity in their visits to the multiplex. The indie circuit produced a fine line of great cult classics including, to name a few, "Memento", "Donnie Darko", "L.I.E.", "Hedwig & The Angry Inch", "In The Bedroom"; but stealing their thunder is this beautiful, powerfully performed film, that really undeservedly missed out on the Oscar race last year. The one film I can remember feeling like as I was watching Marc Forster's sophomore effort was Tom Tykwer's third film, "The Princess & The Warrior", another of 2001's criminally ignored gems. Milo Addica and Will Rokos' Oscar nominated script (which, to their credit, weaved its way through Hollywood for years and never succumbed to that old debacle, 'script doctoring') works with characters as opposed to an iron-clad plotline, and, along with Forster's deft direction, makes the film feel like a giant wave as one event follows another in an amazing emotional rollercoaster. This is a film that commands the audience's attention and calls for them to soak in every detail emblazoned on the screen, all at a leisurely pace which some will find irritating and others intoxicating ... Forster, a Swedish-born filmmaker who studied in New York, is more than ably assisted by his cast and crew, from Roberto Schaefer's gorgeously bleached photography to the ethereal score, both of which complement the heavy, Deep Southern atmosphere. And the cast duly deliver the kind of performances that are all too rare in many movies. 2001 will be remembered as Billy Bob Thornton's year in how he flitted from mild-mannered barber in the Coens' "The Man Who Wasn't There" to a phobia-ridden bankrobber in Barry Levinson's "Bandits" to this acutely subtle portrayal of a man searching for an emotional connection and break away from his suffocating family. And Halle Berry is his perfect match, leaving her inhibitions and her diva-style aloofness (as displayed in blockbusters "X-Men" and "Swordfish") at the door for an animalistic manifestation of a woman at the end of her emotional tether (I bought this DVD based solely on her Oscar clip). Of the supporting players, Heath Ledger, in a surprisingly short role, gives the audience something a lot more substantial and interesting than his "10 Things I Hate About You" performance gave cause for us to suspect, and Mos Def is equally good as the only genuinely fatherly father in the entire film. And Peter Boyle ... the fact that he didn't win the Oscar is heartbreaking enough for how concentratedly vile, creepy and good his performance is. Fans of his "X-Files" episode, where he played a superbly affable medium, will be shaken to the core. Addica and Rokos' screenplay also, after hitting its characters and the audience with an enormous mounting of tension, has the audacity to end on an ambiguous, almost spiritual high that many have argued as lacking and infuriating. To be honest, the resolution in the characters' faces spoke volumes for me and, whatever happened afterwards, the newfound inner peace and the casting out of the past is what the film is celebrating. For me, "Monster's Ball" could have gained a few more nominations come Oscar time (film, director, actor, supporting actor, photography, score), but what remains is a rugged Southern diamond that will stand the test of time and prevail as a modern classic. The DVD, meanwhile, includes two witty and insightful audio commentaries by Forster (one with Shaefer and the other with Berry and Thornton), but the best feature is the outtake where Berry and Thornton, amid joking and giggling, seamlessly become Leticia and Hank infront of our eyes ... spellbinding.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad movie per se but Halle Berry is Over-rated
Review: While direction of the movie was good and the cast as a whole did a great job, I do not in any way consider Halle Berry's peformance Oscar-worthy. Yes, she has one of the best bodies in Hollywood, but so did the supporting actress who let her hair down and stripped for her bit-part as a hooker. While Ms Berry's willingness to appear stark naked and performed wild sex for the name of Art may be commendable (albeit unnecessary), this trait alone does not make a fine actress (although this has apparently earned her a lot of fans). Digressing from the movie, I couldn't help but feel enraged at the point when her character, Laetitia, broke down hysterically over her son's death in a car accident - Ms. Berry was, in real life, a hit-and-run who got away with it.
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Summary: best movie of the year
Review: "Monsters Ball", is one of the best movies of the year! It is a movie unlike any we have ever seen. There is a scene that many people with weak minds do not like, which is known as the "Adult"(sexual scene). This scene might not be wise to watch if your one of those people. (Just do what your parents taught you back when you were young... cover your eyes. This movie has a very good point and it's a great movie for people who are interracial dating like myself. The movie is very sad and shows how hateful people were in the past, and walks you though the life that they had in those days. It also shows you how when you "know"...you "know".What I mean by that is that no matter what, when you know you fall in love with someone you will know it. Love has no color, love has no face, but when you feel it inside, you will know that you are in love at that time and place. Me and my girl-friend both go to the movie theatre around twice a week and have seen just about every movie you can possible think of. (She's a theater major) and this is one of the best movies we have ever seen. Even though it is a sad movie, it's a great screenplay.
Rating:
Summary: A potentially great movie with disappointing deliverance
Review: I was very excited to see this movie after such hype, but found it to be very exaggerated after seeing it. It's a love story based on tragedy and rebounding chemistry, but any issues far from relationships are only touched periphally and with shallow direction. Nevertheless, the connection between Thornton's development into a better human being and Halle Berry's struggle to survive through life is undeniably acute, but it seems that her Oscar award is biased towards her beauty and pornography rather than her acting. She is indeed a good actress, but her role and performance is at least one notch below Academy Award. Billy Bob Thornton as always has strength in subtlety, and his emotions are very complimentary when paired with Berry's. Sean Combs deserves all the praise to come from his part, but all acting aside this movie is weak in final result. Many people mention the sex scenes as well, and they are well implemented but of no more mention than any other scene. The cinematography is very good, and the dialogue plays well between the characters which are richly defined, but the inconclusive and ineffective ending abandons the characters as almost meaningless to any theme the movie may contain. The ending has potential to be moving, but in contrast to Fallen Angels it falls flat and insipid. Overall, if you want to see a movie that deals with tragedy and love, try Monster's Ball, but if you're looking for a movie with any depth of racial or social insights, watch Malcom X or American History X.
Rating:
Summary: Who Was The Hooker?
Review: I have no quibbles whatsoever about this film, it's characters, acting, content, realism or any of the other silly little comments that everyone else is making. I'm a man, from the South so there's a little bit of Hank in me. I'm also a diagnosed manic depressive, so I understand Letitia's emotional hurt and explosive outbursts (sexual or otherwise) I'm also Black, so understanding and having sympathy for the Black characters and relating to it's racial issues was no stretch for me, I just want to know who is the Blonde Goddess playing the detached hooker in the hotel? When Hank tells her after an attempted tryst to "just keep that money" her reply of "I'm gon' to" just cracked me up! Don't make this movie more than it is people, it's a brilliant character study that reveals not only what can, but often DOES happen in real life when unusual circumstances bring people together. P. S. Halle Berry is volcanic, she deserved that Oscar.
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