"Monster's Ball," which received its world premiere as the closing selection of this year's AFI Fest, will never be mistaken for that other "Monsters" movie currently delighting family audiences. Tough and uncompromising, Marc Forster's dark dirge of a Southern drama starts off bleak and ends with the merest glimmer of hope. [...] thanks to a pair of remarkable performances by Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry, this tricky sell for Lions Gate could have a silver lining in the form of Oscar nominations.

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