Length: 111 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, language and violence

Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress in "Monster's Ball," and Billy Bob Thornton turns in a strong performance in the film as well. The movie never shies away from powerful emotions, including the deaths of three characters and a love scene of considerable eroticism. "Monster's Ball" takes on some big themes, too, including American race relations and capital punishment, but young director Marc Forster, who was raised in Switzerland, managed to avoid the clichés that plague most films addressing these issues. I watched this movie recently on DVD and found it to be absolutely riveting from beginning to end.

In "Monster's Ball," Hank Grotowski (Thornton) is a white corrections officer at the state penitentiary in 1990s Georgia. As the film opens, we see Hank going about his duties as the lead man in the preparations to carry out the execution of a black inmate. Hank's adult son Sonny (Heath Ledger) is also a corrections officer, and he must assist with the execution as well. We soon learn that Hank and Sonny live in a house with Hank's racist father (Peter Boyle), a retired corrections officer, and the three men comprise a peculiar, dysfunctional family.

We watch the grim proceedings leading up to the execution of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), and we meet his obese 12-year-old son Tyrell and the boy's striking-looking African American mother Leticia (Berry), a waitress in deep financial trouble. Then a sequence of tragic events unfolds, and Hank and Leticia are drawn into a relationship that quickly explodes into a passionate love affair. But the lovers must come to terms with some daunting problems, including their feelings about their connections with Lawrence Musgrove.

I loved the acting in "Monster's Ball," and I was really impressed that director Marc Forster let many scenes run on longer than they do in most mainstream Hollywood movies, which are evidently aimed at viewers with absurdly short attention spans. I think the emotional power of this film comes mainly from the fact that the characters are given enough time to express their feelings. This movie is on the whole a rather quiet film, yet I wasn't bored for a single minute.

I really enjoyed the feature-length commentary track on the "Monster's Ball" DVD featuring Marc Forster, Billy Bob Thornton, and Halle Berry. Thornton explains that he didn't trust the cleanliness of metal spoons from the prop department, and he claims this is the reason that his character Hank always uses a plastic spoon to eat his ice cream. I was also fascinated to learn that two of the movie's scenes were filmed in the New Orleans motel room where evangelist Jimmy Swaggart was caught with a prostitute back in 1988. I was a little surprised while listening to this commentary track when Thornton excused himself and left about 17 minutes before the film was over!

The DVD also has a second feature-length commentary track, this one again featuring Forster, but this time pairing him with cinematographer Roberto Schaefer. Although I didn't find this commentary track nearly as interesting as the one with the lead actors, it was nonetheless reasonably informative. I found it intriguing that they filmed the prison scenes, including those set on death row and in the execution room, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Schaefer mentions many other movies that have influenced him, including "Apocalypse Now," "Taxi Driver," "Imitation of Life," and "The Searchers." Forster and Schaefer also briefly discuss the big love scene in "Monster's Ball," and Forster mentions that the MPAA made him cut out about a minute of footage to avoid an NC-17 rating.

Another worthwhile feature on the DVD is "Behind the Scenes," mainly because it shows how Thornton keeps things loose on the set. There are also four deleted scenes on the DVD, although I didn't find those particularly interesting. There's also a short feature on "Scoring the Film," which isn't especially compelling.

Selected Special Features on the DVD:

• Commentary by Director and Cinematographer
• Commentary by Director and Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton
• Deleted Scenes (4)
• Behind the Scenes (4 1/2 min.)
• Scoring the Film (8 min.)
• Theatrical Trailer