Monster's Ball Review
by Mark R. Leeper (markrleeper AT yahoo DOT com)February 25th, 2002
MONSTER'S BALL
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: In a small rural Georgia town a white racist and a black woman form a tender and tenuous relationship after each suffers an unexpected loss. The story does not avoid cliches, but the characterizations haunt the viewer long after the film is over. Rating: 9 (0 to 10), +3 (-4 to +4)
Hank Grotowski (played by Billy Bob Thornton) leads a life that seems like a catalog of pain received and pain given. His bullying father Buck (Peter Boyle) is a first-class racist and has raised his son to be as much like him as possible. Hank is an executioner in the Georgia Department of Corrections. His father lovingly keeps a scrapbook of the people his son has executed. Hank has his own son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), working right with him in the penitentiary, marching convicts to the electric chair. But Sonny does not have what it takes to be a Grotowski in good standing. Hank does not like Sonny making friends with some local blacks and warns them off his property firing a shotgun. Giving pain is natural to Hank and almost a way of life. Currently Hank is preparing for the upcoming execution of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean "Puffy" Combs). Lawrence's wife Leticia (Halle Berry) visits him in prison bringing their overweight son Tyrell.
The film goes back and forth between the daily lives of Hank and Leticia. Each is a hard parent on his/her child. Neither knows the other very well, though Leticia waits tables in a restaurant Hank visits. When Leticia's son is hit by a car, Hank happens onto the scene and reluctantly agrees to take the boy to the hospital. Something about Leticia strikes a hidden chord of decency in Hank's personality. Perhaps he is attracted by her looks, perhaps by her vulnerability. In spite of his upbringing, he wants to help Leticia. When each suffers a serious personal loss, his decency becomes a need to get and give comfort. Helping Leticia, perhaps in spite of herself, becomes his fixation.
Certainly there is nothing very original about the plot of the man who has been so unfeeling seeing the pain he has caused and finding joy in reforming and being nourished by some of the very people he hurt. Not to demean the plot, but it is even a little reminiscent of Dickens's A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Where the script has its greatest interest is in the situations it creates and the reactions that the characters have. Right up to the end we wonder exactly what are the characters thinking and how are they reacting to what they are seeing. Milo Addica and Will Rokos have written a script rich in irony and bittersweet humor. The pacing is deliberate, but that allows it to create and linger over situations that might be over in a single scene in other writers' hands. We see ironic parallels in the two main characters who are in some ways analogs of each other. Hank lives with a father who cheats by sneaking cigarettes when he should not be smoking. Leticia lives with a son who cheats by sneaking candy. Hank and Leticia go overboard in disciplining their sons. Hank does not trust blacks, Leticia does not trust whites. They each use sex not for lust but as an escape and a way of comforting each other.
Halle Berry is excellent as Leticia, showing an acting talent we probably have not seen from her before. But, perhaps unfortunately, Leticia has the attractive looks of a Halle Berry. I am not sure the story is precisely right with her in the lead. Certainly the film shows that Hank has a core of decency, but I found myself wondering if he could have been as decent if Leticia was a black woman with the looks of an Agnes Moorhead.
Like the film LIMBO, MONSTER'S BALL builds to an ambiguous ending. Much of the film hinges on what happens next and on what people are thinking in the last of the film. And, of course, we are left with that ambiguity. MONSTER'S BALL is a haunting film with well- defined characters and a strong emotional impact. I rate it a 9 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
