Average Rating: 4.6/10
Reviews Counted: 34
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 24
Provoked's story is worth telling, but the hammy dialogue and heavy-handed direction doesn't give it the refined treatment it deserves.
Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 11
Provoked's story is worth telling, but the hammy dialogue and heavy-handed direction doesn't give it the refined treatment it deserves.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 7,275
Inspired by the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Jag Mundhra's Provoked tells the tale of a battered wife pushed to the ultimate act of defiance. As a nineteen year old girl living in a small Punjab village with her overbearing sisters and their husbands, Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya Rai) aspired to get a college education and see the world. Despite her ambitious plans, however, Kiranjit put her entire future on hold the moment she met handsome family friend Deepak (Naveen Andrews). Later,
May 11, 2007 Wide
Nov 13, 2007
Eros Entertainment
All Critics (34) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (24)
The real-life heroes in this story deserve better than a formulaic, poorly shot melodrama.
The script is melodramatic, and Rai's lead performance is thin stuff.
[Director] Mundhra can't control the expansiveness of the melodrama or focus on the terseness of realism. Every character in Provoked, from victims to tyrants, Indian to English, loud to quiet, ends up as a grossly exaggerated comic creation.
Provoked rarely ducks below its glossy surface.
The true-crime drama Provoked has everything to offer except a cinematic point of view and a knack for depicting human beings under duress. Those are major drawbacks.
Unfortunately, Provoked possesses the tinny production values and schmaltzy music of a prime-time special, despite its ensemble of terrific actors.
A melodrama dressed up just enough to hold interest, in the retelling of an undeniably important story.
What should have turned out as a terrific movie about the crime of spousal abuse has instead received the equivalent of a ham-handed molestation by director Mundhra.
By offsetting Women in Cages-style throw-downs with Malcolm X-like uplift, it is simultaneously strange and familiar, inspiring and annoying.
In the end, Provoked is not provocative enough.
feels largely meaningless and inconsequential
Account of a legal campaign launched by women to expose the brutality of domestic violence and male chauvinism.
Holy Burning Bed! If Britain had its own equivalent of the Lifetime channel, "Provoked" would be tailor made for it.
PROVOKED: A TRUE STORY sets out to tell an important story in the history of the British judicial system. Unfortunately, the project was undertaken by filmmakers who seemingly didn't know how to handle the implications of the story they wanted to tell.
Soapy sermon about the landmark case of a battered wife.
For all the gushy feelings, the plight of women like Kiranjit, bound not only by domineering, often physically abusive husbands but by racism and oppressive cultural traditions as well, is poignantly portrayed.
Average real-life based movie, nothing that makes it "A Must Watch".
January 6, 2009Super Reviewer
A well-picked but badly told story, director Jagmohan Mundhra caricatures practically everything on screen - taking away from the realism that could've made Provoked a great movie, and Aishwarya Rai, indifferent from her character, doesn't help the proceedings.
July 10, 2011Super Reviewer
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