I remember back in the day all the fuss about the interracial romance of Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. And of course there were some who said that this could only happen with a daughter with liberal parents and a black man who was nothing less than a saint.

No one will confuse Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry as candidates for sainthood. Thornton comes from a racist southern tradition and is the second in a three generation line of corrections officers for the state of Louisiana. Halle Berry is married to Sean P. Combs who is sitting on Death Row in the state of Louisiana and it turns out that Thornton and his son Heath Ledger are assigned to that cell block.

The thing I like about Monster's Ball is that the leads and those around them are very human and very flawed. It would have been so easy to make Berry and even more Thornton caricatures, but they are very real and very human.

Thornton lives in an all male household with invalid father Peter Boyle and son Heath Ledger. Ledger in his eyes might not just have the right stuff to make it in Thornton's profession and his world. Definitely not in Boyle's where the civil rights revolution just hasn't arrived.

Berry is a working mother with a pre-teen son who is terribly overweight and she just doesn't see him as a fitting son for Combs. Mind you even though Combs is on Death Row and we never learn why, he's her ideal man and her fat son just isn't in that image. The son is played by Corinja Calhoun in his one and only film and it's a very touching performance and Berry's best scenes are with him.

After Combs dies, both Berry and Thornton lose their children and a chance meeting with Thornton on the road who takes Berry and Calhoun to the hospital. Their separate tragedies underscore a need each other has for supporting companionship and a little sex thrown in as well.

38 years after Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win an Oscar for Best Actor, Halle Berry became the first black woman to win in the Best Actress category. And Poitier was in the audience that night when Denzel Washington became the second black actor to win in the Best Actor category for Training Day. Berry blew away the competition that night, my only problem was why wasn't Billy Bob Thornton nominated as well? Monter's Ball got another nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Monster's Ball is about real three dimensional people finding each other and helping each other work their way through horrific tragedy. They learn to need and care for each other so much that things like race just lose their importance. When broadcast, Monster's Ball shouldn't be missed.

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) is the prison guard in charge of the executions. His son Sonny Grotowski (Heath Ledger) works with him but vomits while escorting Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs) on his final walk. Hank is angry and confronts Sonny. Sonny kills himself. Hank decides to leave the prison and ends up dating Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry) who is the wife of the executed Lawrence. He has to deal with conflicted feelings especially those handed down by his racist father Buck Grotowski (Peter Boyle).

This movie is filled with great performances. Even Sean Combs delivers a workable performance. Ledger has a short and tough role. Halle Berry has one scene that is shockingly haunting. Her berating her chubby son is unforgettable. All of it is held together by Billy Bob.

Overall, the film makes a powerful statement about racial relations and how a person can overcome life long prejudices if one is willing to see things from the other person's point of view. Both lead characters, Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) and Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry) make this transition through horrific personal tragedies, initially finding each other through desperation, then building their relationship through mutual respect and understanding. It would be a toss up as to which one had the harder time of it, but both take the leap of faith that all interracial couples must come to grips with eventually.

To be sure, there are simplistic elements in the picture that distract, and plot flaws that take away from the picture's impact. Why for example, would Hank be able to remove the bullet from the chair in which Sonny (Heath Ledger) shot and killed himself? This is a two part question. A proper crime scene investigation would have accomplished that already for one, and secondly, how would the bullet completely pass through Sonny's body?

Another thing that bothered me was the uneven editing of the love scenes between Hank and Leticia. The first time I saw this picture was on a VHS screener copy, so I chalked it up to a poor print. But watching a DVD version today did not resolve that issue. The quick jump cuts to the bird cage while Hank and Leticia succumbed to their passion seemed disjointed, particularly since there was no prior reference to that prop. I get the symbolism of a caged bird trying to break free, so that's not the issue. While watching you either have to figure that out quickly, or wind up scratching your head for a few minutes, thereby losing your focus on what follows.

I think what I liked best about the development of Thornton's character was the way he came around to approach the black neighbor with the two boys who liked Sonny. It was done gradually and realistically, first initiated by the boys who wanted to express their regret over Sonny's death. Then, as time went by, Hank brings Sonny's truck to the father to have it readied for Leticia to drive. The transition is done without the confrontation one might expect, and without questioning underlying motives for Hank's sudden change of temperament. You can sense the black man's apprehension, but he goes with Hank's flow to further reduce those racial barriers between the two.

The finale, well I'm actually somewhat puzzled by it. Leticia's sudden discovery of Hank's identity in relation to her husband's execution was undeniably gut wrenching. So what happened during the interlude in which Hank went to buy some ice cream? It ended just a little too feel good to come off successfully. That revelation probably should have occurred in place of Buck's (Peter Boyle) racist sentiments, giving Hank and Leticia time to come to grips with the anomaly their lives were presented. It's not likely that they wouldn't have broached the subject after the closing credits rolled, so letting in the viewer on that discussion would have answered any lingering questions about their relationship.

Be that as it may, I thought the film was generally well done. It makes one examine one's own prejudices and elicits a reaction to the events as they unfold on screen. Above all it makes you think about what it takes to see a human being, and that can only be a good thing.