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Prisoners of life's circumstance
Billy Bob Thornton plays a racist prison guard who executes a man and then falls in love with his wife, played by Halle Berry, in Monster's Ball.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 7, 2002
[Photos: Lions Gate Films]
The paths of Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) and Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry) cross and intertwine in Monster’s Ball.
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Marc Forster's searing Southern Gothic drama Monster's Ball borrows its title from death row slang describing a condemned prisoner's final family reunion before execution. But everyone in the movie is doomed, even the guards and survivors. All they can do is wait for self-destruction to complete itself unless there is some miraculous reprieve.
Relatively little of Forster's film takes place inside prison walls, yet confinement is a key element throughout. Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) is trapped in a family cycle of racism and worrisome jobs organizing executions. His father, Buck, a bilious bigot played to the hilt by Peter Boyle, is the root of Hank's evils. Hank's son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), is ready to break out, a spark of conscience viewed by Buck and Hank as weakness. Sonny's cell is the family parlor.
Hank's latest job assignment, pulling the switch on convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), grates on his nerves. Lawrence isn't a bad guy, but he's black and guilty and that's enough for Hank. Lawrence's monster ball includes his weary wife, Leticia (Halle Berry), and son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), who wears his insecurity on his waistline. The child is the only reason Leticia wants to see her neglectful husband again.
Leticia and Hank are different as night and day except for their mutual despair. Neither knows the other's connection to Lawrence when they meet. Then, remarkably, they fall into as much love as their caged souls will allow.
Monster's Ball is a casually powerful movie with Forster prone to long stretches of silent exposition, drama relying on actors revealing what the dialogue does not. Acts of violence, cruelty and erotic desperation seem to spring from nowhere, yet we know in an instant the cumulative sources of such behavior. The screenplay by Milo Addica and Will Rokos locates the core of these characters with offhand remarks, then Forster and his actors build their coarsely fragile shells.
Sonny Grotowski (Heath Ledger, left) and his father Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton, right) escort convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs, center).
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Thornton turns Hank into a compelling contradiction, easy to despise for the way he scares two African-American children cutting across his yard, then sympathetic for his attention to Leticia. The screenwriters are smart not to make that change happen like flipping on a light switch. Real people don't change so completely that quickly. Thornton's understated portrayal -- not much more animated than the one in The Man Who Wasn't There -- is a model of emotional complexity.
Berry's amazing transformation from cover girl to Leticia's rural raggedness is simply the best female performance of the awards season, a deeper version of Sissy Spacek's work in In the Bedroom that is reaping awards. Berry fearlessly reaches moments of anguish and exposure that other actors wouldn't dare or couldn't manage. Watch her last, wordless scene for a lesson in expression, her face awash with sudden awareness, resistance and resolution. This performance is a stunning declaration of previously underestimated talent.
The great acting doesn't end there. Ledger, an Australian, makes a convincing good ol' boy in a wise detour from pinup roles such as his turn in A Knight's Tale. Combs, a.k.a. Puff Daddy/P. Diddy, should now be called a highly promising screen presence, full of the confidence and masked sorrow that rap music demands from its artists, poses that translate well to the screen. Boyle is chilling in a role recalling his breakthrough 1970 portrayal of Joe, as if that murderous racist had grown old and moved to Georgia.
Billy Bob Thornton, left, Peter Boyle and Heath Ledger are corrections officers in Monster’s Ball.
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The moss-draped Mayberry veneer makes the hate, mistrust and co-dependence simmering beneath Monster's Ball seem benign. Somehow, the film raises those ugly issues without soapboxing and turns them into something mutely uplifting. There's a happy ending, at least what passes for one under these tragic circumstances. Monster's Ball is like eavesdropping on a prison visit where Plexiglas keeps people from touching, but they can't resist pressing against the pane. Or, in this case, the pain.
Monster's Ball
- Grade: A
- Director: Marc Forster
- Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Sean Combs, Peter Boyle, Heath Ledger, Coronji Calhoun
- Screenplay: Milo Addica, Will Rokos
- Rating: R; harsh profanity, sexuality and violence
- Running time: 111 min.
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