Woohoo Halle Berry!! Eww Billy Bob Thorton
I don't know who picks what movies should be nominated for Academy Awards, but they should be shot. Sometimes they do pick really good movies to be nominated, like "Forest Gump" and "Pulp Fiction". But then they nominate movies like "Monster's Ball" and it makes me wonder, "What the hell?" Why do I wonder that about this movie? Cause it is the weirdest, most twisted movie. And yeah, Halle Berry won the best actress award, but I think it was out of pity cause of her having to have Billy Bob Thorton feel up on her all the time.
Hm, maybe I should dive into the movie before I go further on that.
Billy Bob plays Hank, who at the start of the movie works in a prison with his son, Sonny, played by Heath Ledger. If you don't know Heath Ledger, he's this blonde haired dude that women declared a hunk. Then it went to Vin Diesel. Now I think it went to Jack Nicholson. Hank's father, Buck, played by Peter Boyle, is a very extreme racist. Hank may or may not really be one. And Sonny just wants everyone to get along.
At the prison they work at, they're about to electrocute one Sean "Puff Daddy/Diddy/Doody/Whatever else" Combs. If his character's name was given anytime in the movie, it was during the countless scenes where the volume was so low that I had to turn my tv way up and I still couldn't hear it. P. Diddy is married to Laticia (Pronounced La Tisha but it's spelled Laticia...I want to kill the screen writers), played by Halle Berry. They have a son named Tarrell who is fat.
Hank and Sonny execute P.Diddle Daddle and Sonny kills himself later that day because Hank hates him. This makes Hank quit the prison and buy a gas station. I should point out here this movie takes place in Georgia. Maybe that's how people deal with grief in the south, quit one job and buy a gas station. That might explain why there's a ton of gas stations in the south.
Hank hangs out at a diner where he orders chocolate ice cream and coffee, which he takes black. Symbolism anyone? Laticia works at the diner, so when Hank was driving back home from there, he noticed her and her son in the middle of the road. Laticia's car broke down and a car hit Tarrell. Later, he dies.
It's at this point that Hank decides he wants to boff Laticia and then the famous "Halle Berry/Billy Bob Thorton Boffing On The Couch Scene" takes place. To guys who always wanted to see Halle's "Berry's" you get a good chance here. Anyway...
Hank and Laticia form a relationship and the relationship is hanging on a thread when she meets Buck. Then I get confused. He asks her for a cigarette, she gives it to him, he says "I use to have sex with women also", she gets mad at HANK, not Buck mind you but Hank, and hates him.
So Hank puts Buck in a nursing home.
Full of black people. Zing!
Eventually, Laticia makes up with Hank, mainly because she got thrown out of her house by the landlord and accepted his offer to stay in the now racist-free house. Hank celebrates by going deep south on Laticia, if you get my drift. And he named his gas station after her.
Boy, southerners deal with grief in different ways. I wanna be a southerner. (Ahem)
Then while he's out getting ice cream, Laticia finds out that Hank was the one that executed P.Howdy Doody and makes us think that she's gonna get all medevil on him again, for no apparent reason.
I should point out two scenes here that stand out (besides the sex scene) from this movie. Laticia beats Tarrell for being fat. Then before Hank and Laticia boff, she talks about curtains for about roughly, without exaggeration...three hours. So pretty much you got a weird twisted disturbing but somehow boring movie. Even the beginning when Sonny had sex with a prostitute didn't save the movie. Oh, the opening sex scene with Sonny was shot in real time, so the scene is about 45 seconds long.
Now, my complaint about this movie. Why the hell did Laticia get mad at Hank when Buck was talking all weird? And what did Buck say that set her off? I swear I don't understand it. Why is she assuming that Hank is a racist just because his dad is. I mean, my dad works in a steel mill, that doesn't mean I work in one too. I know, weird comparison but work with me here. I totally didn't understand that. I suppose if Laticia was a vegetarian and Buck said "Oh boy I love killing cows for meat!! MEAT YUMMY!!", would she take it out on Hank and think that he too is a meat eating jerk?
And I know that when rock stars meet a woman, they name a song after them, but naming a gas station? I wish they showed her reaction to this, I would've loved to have seen that. When I talk to my girlfriend after I write this, I'm gonna ask her if she would think it was sweet and romantic that I named a gas station after her? And the hell kind of name is that for a gas station? Aren't gas stations suppose to be named like "The Quick Lube" or "Gas N Save" or even "Cheap Ass Gas!"? Who would go to a gas station named "Laticia"? And plus they'd probably say it wrong.
Customer: I like it here at "La-tee-see-ia"
Hank: NO!! IT's "LA-TEE-SHA!! GET OUT!!
Customer: Umm...that's just weird.
Eh, I don't live in the south, what do I know?
Mos Def is somewhere in this movie. I don't know he is in real life or in the movie. So I recommend that you watch this movie for Halle Berry and to play "Find Mos Def!!". Skip everything else. Unless you hate P.Doffy like me and want to see him electrocuted. Then watch that as well.
2 stars (Yes, two. Come on, naked Halle Berry!)
See What IMDb.com Says About "Monster's Ball":
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0285742/