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Monster's Ball (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:141
Fresh:120
Rotten:21
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Somber and thought provoking, Monster's Ball has great performances all around.
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $31,252,964
Synopsis:
MONSTER'S BALL is a hard hitting Southern drama tempered by a story of powerful, life-changing love. It is the story of Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), an embittered prison guard working on Death Row...
MONSTER'S BALL is a hard hitting Southern drama tempered by a story of powerful, life-changing love. It is the story of Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), an embittered prison guard working on Death Row who begins an unlikely, but emotionally charged affair with Leticia (Halle Berry), the wife of a man he has just executed. MONSTER'S BALL also features Heath Ledger and Peter Boyle. Boyle plays Hank’s bigoted, aging father, whose hatred seems to have poisoned his entire family as much as the family business, which is working on the prison Death Squad. Ledger plays Hank’s son, who is hell-bent on getting out of the family business. The film is directed by award-winning filmmaker Marc Forster. He was nominated for an IFP/West Spirit Award as Best Low Budget Feature and won the Movado "Someone to Watch" Prize at the 2001 Spirit Awards for his film, "Everything Put Together."
Set in Georgia, MONSTER'S BALL was filmed entirely on location in and around New Orleans, Louisiana and at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (also known as "The Farm").
MONSTER'S BALL is from an original screenplay by Milo Addica and Will Rokos, is produced by Lee Daniels, executive produced by Mark Urman, Mike Paseornek, and co-produced by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. Lions Gate Films will release the film in December, 2001. -- © 2001 Lions Gate Films
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Heath Ledger, Peter Boyle
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Heath Ledger, Peter Boyle, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Mos Def
Director: Marc Forster
Director: Marc Forster
Screenwriter: Milo Addica, Will Rokos
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Reviews for Monster's Ball
It's not exactly a ball, but this movie does feature two monster performances.
While Billy Bob transforms terrifically from a bigot to a noble man in a biracial relationship, Halle is just plain brilliant as a poor and exhausted woman who finally reaches her breaking point.
This is one of those rare movies in which even people glimpsed only for a moment or two seem to have lives that ramify beyond the screen, as if the story were being witnessed rather than dramatized.
Forster successfully navigates small-town American Gothic terrain, brilliantly detailing not only the association between grief and self-destruction, but also grief's capacity to engineer profound redemption.
Hay escenas duras, y hay detalles de guión que no convencerán si son quisquillosos, pero las actuaciones pagan con creces todos los fallos y valen el pago del boleto.
Sadness engulfs the people in this provocative drama like a dense fog, leaving them with little sense of direction or purpose except trying to get by each day. Stunning performances!
A textbook example of fearless filmmaking, exhibiting a brand of gritty realism that's hard to watch but impossible to ignore.
[Marc Foster] knows that careful, quiet dialogue, and long, silent pauses speak louder than lengthy emotional summaries.
This complex, rich film dwells in the shades of grey, never offering an easy answer and always leaving us with questions.
In [Berry's] remarkably animated performance, Thornton's deft laconic turn finds a fitting match.
Forster's poised direction, as well as powerful turns from Billy Bob Thornton and the Oscar-winning Halle Berry, make this compelling viewing.
The low-key performances by Thornton and Berry are so deeply felt that you feel like a cell mate in their emotional prisons.
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