The misfortune of Marc Forster’s “Monster’s Ball” is that it invites too many invidious comparisons. As a portrayal of the realities of death row in an American prison, it doesn’t quite equal “Dead Man Walking.” As an examination of the way poisonous beliefs infect the succeeding generations in a family, it’s a runner-up to “Affliction.” As a depiction of the grief that comes from the loss of a child, it doesn’t match “The Sweet Hereafter” or “In the Bedroom.” Even in terms of restrained, minimalist performances from Billy Bob Thornton, it follows all too closely upon the ever-so-slightly superior “Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Still, if you can set aside all that, Forster’s film is actually very good. The central character is Hank Grotowski (Thornton), the head guard in the maximum security area of a Georgia prison where his son Sonny (Heath Ledger) works under him. The brooding, ominously quiet Hank is an unreconstructed racist–a trait that he’s inherited from his odious father Buck (Peter Boyle), a bedridden misanthrope who had also been a prison employee. Sonny, on the other hand, is a more sensitive, tolerant sort, though without much strength of conviction, and when his emotions overcome him during the execution of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), Hank is disgusted with the boy–an emotional reaction that leads to family tragedy. Shortly afterward, Hank encounters Musgrove’s widow Leticia (Halle Berry), who’s taken a job as a waitress in a diner he obsessively visits, always for a bowl of chocolate ice-cream, which he eats only with a plastic spoon in a habitual booth. On one stormy night he’s compelled to help her after an accident befalls her son Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), and they gradually enter a halting friendship which necessarily challenges his inbred ethnic hatred (and brings out the worst in his father). The ultimate question is whether these two damaged people can overcome their individual losses and come together despite the obstacles which separate them–or, to put it in the way that scripters Milo Addica and Will Rokos frame it a mite too ponderously, whether Hank will be able to find happiness (which is what “leticia” means in Latin, of course). Even more broadly, the issue is: can the present escape the past, or must we remain what our families have made us?

The coincidences that propel the plot of “Monster’s Ball” (the title refers to an execution without lawyer, minister or family present) are severe, of course, and Forster’s very deliberate staging accentuates the essential implausibility of it all. Still, the overall impact is considerable; this is an affecting, thought-provoking film despite the plot contrivances on which it depends. Thornton gives his third superb performance of the year (along with “Bandits” and the aforementioned “Man”), and Berry is excellent as well: the hesitant nature of their courtship is beautifully caught through the use of silences rather than reams of dialogue. Both are especially effective in their relationships with their children: Hank’s final confrontation with Sonny is extraordinarily powerful, and a scene in which Leticia berates Tyrell for his overeating is painfully vivid. Ledger and Calhoun are very fine as the youngsters, too–the Australian heartthrob is particularly to be commended for taking such a risky part–and Boyle is spectacularly loathsome as Buck. Surprisingly enough, Combs is not lost in this company; he paints a nuanced, even touching portrait of the dignified, doomed Musgrove. All the performances are enhanced by the splendid wide-screen photography of Roberto Schaefer.

“Monster’s Ball” is a spare film, almost as laconic as Hank is himself, and some in the audience will find it ponderous, even emotionally desiccated. If you’re willing to surrender to its peculiar rhythm and allow it the necessary space to grow on you, however, you should find it a remarkably moving experience.

Grade: D

It’s doubtful that we were in need of an African-American version of a Cheech and Chong drug- themed comedy, but that’s what writer Dustin Lee Abraham and neophyte director Jesse Dylan have chosen to serve up (as a Christmas gift, no less) in “How High.” The movie stars two hip-hop headliners, Method Man and Redman, as Silas and Jamal, a couple of cool dudes from the New Jersey projects who ace the college entrance exam as the result of smoking some dope from a plant fertilized with the ashes of a deceased buddy named Ivory (Chuck Davis). (It seems that Ivory’s ghost appears to them when they puff the weed and gives them all the answers, consorting as he does with the spirits of very knowledgeable people.) The two are quickly invited to enroll at Harvard, where they have lots of gross and farcical adventures before they link up with the girls they’ve been pursuing while succeeding in their studies (largely as a result of the potency of the drugs they constantly use) and outwitting every troublesome guy in sight (of whatever race).

This is hardly an inspiring tale; its unremitting coarseness and utterly amoral attitude will be excruciating for most viewers to sit through. (The street slang is so pervasive, moreover, that unless you’ve very fluent in it, you’ll sometimes feel like you’re watching a foreign-language film devoid of subtitles.) Still, the picture certainly has energy, and a fairly professional appearance, too (it’s certainly preferable to a crude home movie like “Pootie Tang”). The target audience will undoubtedly enjoy the fact that the lead duo unfailingly win against rich snobs, snooty administrators and everybody else they encounter through their nonchalant street attitude; others may find the contempt with which all authority figures and “uncool” folk are treated more than a little repulsive. (Obba Babatunde, for example, is repeatedly humiliated in the role of the uptight dean–oh so cutely named Dean Cain–who’s the boys’ nemesis, a sort of African- American version of the John Vernon character from “Animal House;” Fred Willard is embarrassingly broad as Harvard’s chancellor; Jeffrey Jones, playing the Vice-President of the U.S. in the final scene, looks understandably as though he’d prefer to be elsewhere; and as high- strung students T.J. Thyne, Chris Elwood and Justin Urich are subjected to every form of indignity. On the other hand, Hector Elizondo, Spalding Gray and Tracey Walter survive by coasting along as Harvard faculty who find the heroes delightfully anti-establishment.)

“How High” is a pretty terrible movie with a thoroughly terrible message. The level of vulgarity in it is appalling, and one can certainly castigate it for pandering shamelessly to its intended audience, too. The only compliment one can pay it is that on the purely technical side, it’s better than one might expect. But that’s hardly enough to make it recommendable.