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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 says something that the film has stayed with me well past the entire year-end Oscar season screening frenzy, when I sat through twice the usual number of films.
mostly resides in a mood of loss, somberness and prejudice, with a tender tiny beating heart of hope.
Estupenda muestra de lo que se puede lograr con una historia que muestre a las personas como lo que son: seres humanos en busca de su realización y su lugar en la vida.
Raw moments of naked emotion rip through the contrived tragedies of the script and Forster's careful control and choreography.
Monster's Ball drills at us the same way a dentist goes at your teeth, creating pain but for a greater good.
The kind of quiet, effective film that burrows under the viewer's skin and takes root before you've had a chance to realize that it's permeated your constitutional makeup.
A powerful and poignant motion picture not about racism and redemption, as one might initially suppose, but about one of the most urgent and universal of human needs -- that of finding solace for pain and loneliness.
an Oprah-mistic movie in which people overcome a lifetime’s worth of bad habits by 'opening up.'
It's Berry who sets the pace. Her performance is a triumph of emotion and abandon.
This strangely entrancing drama conveys the redemptive power of love in Hank, a hard man who has closed down his emotions long ago.
A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.
The best thing Marc Forster's direction does is take these characters through their experiences at a convincingly naturalistic respiratory rate...
As the film progresses it becomes clear that, like a dance, Forster's film is predicated on machination but distinguished by grace.
How nice it must be to be Hank, the strong man, swooping in to be Leticia's knight-in-shining-armor. How convenient, also, that this woman happens to be as beautiful as Halle Berry.
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