Who is Halle Berry

Monster's Ball

Billy Bob Thornton already has a fine movie to his credit for the 2001 film season, THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. He stars in MONSTER'S BALL, a film that may possibly vie with IN THE BEDROOM for multiple Oscars.

Here, Thornton plays Hank Grotowski, a senior corrections officer at a prison ostensibly placed in Georgia. Hank supervises a team of officers, which includes his son Sonny (Heath Ledger), and which is assigned to carry out the electric chair execution of a black convict. (Incidentally, a "monster's ball" is defined as the party thrown for a prison guard before he attends at his first execution.) Living with Hank at home is his aging, physically debilitated and venomously racist father, Buck (Peter Boyle), formerly a prison guard also.

The wife of the man to be executed is Leticia, played by Halle Berry. She's gamely trying to pay the rent and keep the car running by working as a waitress, and is raising an overweight son whom she sharply disciplines in an attempt to get him to stop eating everything in sight. (Leticia is convinced that fat, black men don't have a chance in America.)

Both Hank and Leticia are leading separate lives of quiet - and sometimes not so quiet - desperation, each being psychologically and emotionally dragged under by circumstances and taxing personal relationships. Then, in a series of traumatic events over a short period of time, each is cut free of burdens and left, through serendipitous accident, with only each other.

MONSTER'S BALL contains several volatile scenes of emotions on the rawest of edges, and which will keep the viewer riveted. Thornton and Halle Berry both give exemplary performances as two people in unlikely company coming to grip with personal demons. As fair warning to the sensitive, the film incorporates episodes of intense sexuality.

Thornton has become one of my favorite actors, and this is the first time I've seen Halle Berry in any role. I liked this movie very much, and would be hard pressed to choose between it and IN THE BEDROOM for this year's Best Picture Academy Award. -- Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA)

Release Date: 06/11/2002

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Swordfish

Ignore the Amazon editorial review and all the other reader reviews. I don't want to spoil this movie for you by telling you too much about the plot or describing in perfect detail some of the best scenes in the movie but what I will tell you is...
1) Yes, it's true, Dominic Sena's last directorial effort Gone In Sixty Seconds was a MAJOR dissapointment BUT SWORDFISH ISN'T!!! It's a good movie!
2) Travolta is good
3) Halle Berry is good
4) Don Cheadle is underused and
5)Hugh Jackman is a major star in the making.
6) The now infamous scene of Halle Berry topless was probably unnecessary and perhaps gratuitous (but hey, she's a good looking woman with a good body). Sorry, did I say good? I meant great...but if this is the only reason why you'd watch this movie, then you really do need to get a life.
7)This was one of the better films of the summer.
8)It is neither formulaic nor does it lack ambition. Unlike most movies of this genre it challenges it's audience to excercise the old grey matter and it's got a half-decent twist.

Sure it has some faults, like did they run out of money for FX when they shot the scene of the bus landing on the roof? And the change of pace and edit from past events back to present was badly thought out and jarred a bit. BUT you know what? I liked this movie and the directorial set-piece that everybody wants to spoil for you by describing it to you in every detail is excellent. I only wish the moviemakers had been able to take that extra step and made a great rather than good movie. Buy some popcorn, kick back and enjoy this one on a Saturday night at home in front of the TV... -- Mr. N. Carnegie (Kirkcaldy, Scotland, UK.)

Amazon Price: $7.49 (as of 07/11/2009)