'Monster's Ball' proves
love overcomes hatred
By
Jeff Cantwell
Staff Writer
The popular phrase states that blood is thicker
than water, but blood bound by the power of hatred is only as thick
as the illusions that cover it.
"Monster's Ball" is the tale of two people from
different worlds who come together by an unspeakable string of tragedies.
It is a love story about a couple that should have never met in the
first place.
Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) is a corrections officer
at a prison, the place where his father (Peter Boyle) worked, and
where his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), is getting ready to walk his
first prisoner down death row.
The prisoner is Lawrence Musgrove (Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs), the husband of a struggling debt-ridden waitress, Leticia
(Halle Berry), and father to a candy-hoarding son who is fighting
obesity.
But Hank's family is not one filled with love
and kindness; a running streak of suicide and racism marks his household.
But after a series of devastating incidents for both Hank and Leticia,
the two come together in their unlikely romance.
Thornton brings life to the ice cream-loving,
tortured soul of Hank. His story is one of remarkable change from
his solitary, anti-personal view of the world; his sex life consists
of a prostitute that his son also employs but that he will not face
during the act.
But Berry, who received an Oscar nomination for
this role, is the life of "Monster's Ball." Her emotional performance
in a role that requires so much grief and sorrow overshadows the fact
that she is the most beautiful, downtrodden, trashy Southern girl
in existence.
Director Marc Forster, along with writers Milo
Addica and Will Rokos, has created a movie that relies more on cinematic
pandering than intricate dialogue. However, the existing dialogue
bites deep and leaves wounds.
The centerpiece of the film starts with an emotional
talk, both funny and sad, between Hank and Leticia that soon moves
into the lengthy love scene that is the true turning point of Hank's
emotional transformation.
Maybe the worst tragedies can be healed by love;
if nothing else, "Monster's Ball" shows that hatred, no matter how
powerful, can change no matter how thick the blood.
