Monster's Ball

Meet Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a hardened guard at a Mississippi state prison with a racist named Buck (Peter Boyle) for a father, a former guard himself, and a son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), who is both expected to and is trying to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. Sandwiched between the harsh demands and conditions of his job, his father’s lifelong, venomous example of hatred, something that eventually drove even Hank’s own mother to suicide, and his own mixed feelings toward his own son, Hank has seemingly divorced himself completely from any remnants of his own humanity. That all begins to change, however, with the unlikely combination of a family tragedy and a chance encounter with a struggling African-American waitress named Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry). Unknown to both Leticia and Hank, Leticia’s husband, Lawrence Musgrove (Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs), was one of the death row inmates under Hank’s watch. He was executed shortly before their meeting. Leticia and Hank first strike up an odd bond based solely on shared grief and mutual need but which in time blossoms into a loving, caring, emotionally supportive relationship which enables Hank to begin to open the parts of himself which had been long closed, break away from his domineering father and his bitterness-filled life and once again feel and express the love and human compassion that had so long been missing from his life.