Monster (2018 film)

Monster is a 2018 American legal drama film directed by Anthony Mandler, from a screenplay by Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, and Janece Shaffer, based on the novel of the same name by Walter Dean Myers. It stars Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson, Nas, ASAP Rocky, Paul Ben-Victor, John David Washington, Jennifer Hudson, and Jeffrey Wright. Wright, Nas, and John Legend also serve as executive producers on the film.

Three years after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2018, the film was acquired by Netflix and released on May 7, 2021. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Premise
"Monster tells the story of Steve Harmon (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) a seventeen-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder. The film follows his dramatic journey from a smart, likeable film student from Harlem attending an elite high school through a complex legal battle that could leave him spending the rest of his life in prison."

Release
The film premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. In April 2019, it was announced that Entertainment Studios had acquired distribution rights to the film, retitled All Rise. In November 2020, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film, with the title switching back to Monster. It was released on their service on May 7, 2021.

Reception
The website's critical consensus reads, "Monster would have benefited from a less heavy-handed approach, but Kelvin Harrison Jr.'s performance gives this timely drama emotional heft." According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 18 critics, the film received "mixed or average reviews".