Review of Monster's Ball (2001) by Lyndon G — 23 Nov 2009

I remember I was surprised I liked Monster's Ball as much as I did, but a day later it seemed overrated to me. The movie's engaging, but why was it such a very big deal when it came out? Billy Bob Thornton must've converted me too. He's always amazing.

Actually, I decided it was a particularly memorable sex scene that got everyone's attention, and then they felt good about watching something serious and real and wholesome about a prison guard falling in love with a woman whose husband he has just executed. That was my theory.

I like a good sex scene as much as anyone, but I have a thing about self-serious movies overshadowed by their sex scenes--it's almost a liability with me. The movie has to be even better. I mean, I don't care at all whether the scene itself is gratuitous. I couldn't care less. But I do care whether the rest of the movie is gratuitous. And I'm afraid I found this to be a sex scene with a pretty good gratuitous movie around it.