Milo Addica Movies

A young man exacts a thorough revenge against the father who abandoned him in this independent drama. Elvis (Gael García Bernal) is a young man in his early twenties who, after finishing a hitch in the Navy, learns that his biological father was Pastor David Sandow (William Hurt), a man of the cloth who has never taken responsibility for siring a child out of wedlock. Elvis travels to Corpus Christi, TX, to confront Sandow about his past; the pastor asks Elvis to let him break the news to his wife and children himself, and assures the young man he wants to stay in contact with him. Elvis, however, prefers to handle matters in his own way. First Elvis sets his sights on Malerie (Pell James), the pastor's teenage daughter, and after winning her trust, takes the girl's virginity. Malerie soon discovers she's pregnant, and after her older brother Paul (Paul Dano) sees Elvis slipping out of the house following a liason with the girl, he confronts the seducer and is stabbed and killed.
Elvis manages to cover his tracks cleanly enough that no one is certain Paul is dead. Next, Elvis goes to great lengths to ingratiate himself with Sandow, and despite the objections of his wife (Laura Harring), the pastor eventually invites the man who killed his son and violated his daughter to live under the same roof with his family. The King was the first dramatic feature from director James Marsh, who previously distinguished himself in documentaries. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Marc Forster, winner of Best Feature at Slamdance for his debut film Loungers (1996) and the "Someone to Watch" Independent Spirit Award for his indie drama Everything Put Together (2000), follows up those acclaimed projects with this intense, racially charged romance. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Georgia prison guard Hank Grotowski, a hard-drinking racist ex-cop whose father, Buck (Peter Boyle), is dying of emphysema and whose son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), works the execution detail at the prison's death row. When Sonny commits suicide, Hank is devastated and quits his job, spiraling into a deep depression until, one night, he comes to the aid of Leticia (Halle Berry), a beautiful African-American woman whose son, Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), has been hit by a car. When Tyrell dies, Leticia and Hank find themselves to be unexpected soul mates linked together by tragic grief. It's not long before Hank discovers that Leticia is the widow of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), the man whose execution by electric chair he and his late son helped to orchestrate. Monster's Ball (2001) is based on a screenplay by actors Milo Addica and Will Rokos, who spent five years developing their script into a feature. Their title refers to the name of an English tradition requiring jailers to throw a party for a condemned man on the night before his death. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide