All Critics (153)
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Top Critics (39)
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Fresh (126)
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Rotten (21)
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DVD (36)
It's not a polemic on the death penalty, race relations or family dynamics. It's a character study that really sticks with you.
A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came 'round to it.
A textbook example of fearless filmmaking, exhibiting a brand of gritty realism that's hard to watch but impossible to ignore.
[Forster] tells his story with directness and simplicity and without the high hallmarks of the soaps' gooey emotional lubrication.
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.
Monster's Ball drills at us the same way a dentist goes at your teeth, creating pain but for a greater good.
This brutal movie is for adults only.
Though marred by script that telegraphs its messages, this drama still manages to tell a compelling love story betweenn a redneck guard and a black widow, well played by Billy Bob Thronton and particularly Halle Berre, who should get Oscar nomination
Forster makes us too intimate with these characters. But, heavy-handed and derivative as it is, its lead actors strike some resonant chords....
Forster's poised direction, as well as powerful turns from Billy Bob Thornton and the Oscar-winning Halle Berry, make this compelling viewing.
Thornton and Berry show us what acting is in this movie.
Halle Berry turns in an amazing performance.
Recalls Tender Mercies, another astutely acted character study that remained resolutely small-scale and was all the more affecting because it didn't overreach.
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