The creators of Brooklyn Rules abided
largely by only one: that if anything mob-related was popular enough
to become cliche, it was good enough for their movie. The film
opens in a church as the main character narrates, talking about his
boyhood in the titular borough and how it affected him and his two
best buds as they grew up. Fast forward to 1985, when one’s working
in a butcher shop and going to college, one’s a bumbling,
directionless innocent, and one’s flirting with the local family. Cue
conversations about whether being feared is the same as being
respected, as well as plenty of whatsa-matta-you banter full of
“da”s, “foockin’”s, and “douchebag”s. 

Alarmingly, this amateurish telling was
written by Terence Winter, a veteran Sopranos scribe, who apparently saved his first-draft for the big screen. Alec Baldwin
is billed as a star, but his slightly over-the-top but effective turn
as a boss is minor as the kids are allowed to run the show.  Freddie
Prinze Jr. is Michael, the cartoonishly accented, responsible lead
character who’s studying pre-law and adjusts his personality for his
WASPy classmates and Brooklyn friends accordingly. Michael has big
dreams but tries to keep his lives separate, confessing in voice-over
that “in my neighborhood, it was better to keep ambitions like
water polo to yourself” and acting reluctant when his buddies want
to accompany him to a party in the city for Ellen (Mena Suvari), a
fellow student Michael’s trying to date. (For good reason: The mixing
doesn’t go so well.)

Meanwhile, baby-faced Bobby (Jerry
Ferrara) is religious and good-natured, wanting nothing more than to
start working for the Post Office so he and his squeeze can settle
down. Carmine (Ocean Thirteen’s Scott Caan) is the troublemaker:
Smart but vain – both about his looks and in feeling indestructible
– he begins doing small jobs for Caesar (Baldwin), seeing it as the
only agreeable way to make a good living in his ‘hood. He dismisses
Michael’s concerns. Of course, trouble is waiting, and  Carmine’s
antics start to involve his two friends as well.

The three young actors do have a
likable presence onscreen, but Michael Corrente directs them to
extreme Brooklyn-isms – such as those awful accents — that make
the work at times skirt parody. The film is interesting mostly when
it integrates the real-life rise of John Gotti with Carmine’s story,
and its inevitable tragedy is heartbreaking, even if you see it
coming from practically the start. But like the mob life, none of its
perks is enough to make Brooklyn Rules worthwhile.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

"Dinner, dancing, and — if things go well — disfigurement!"

The decades-spanning story told in
Crazy Love isn’t the type of headline-grabber you’d currently read
about in, say, Us Weekly – because this one is actually true. Burt
Pugach and Linda Riss are the subjects of Dan Klores’ documentary
(co-directed by Fisher Stevens), a couple who first made the papers
in 1959 and, excepting this movie, have continued to do so until as
recently as 1996. Their relationship has been publicly defined by
betrayal, obsession, violence, and a stranger-than-fiction ending.
Now Klores is betting that viewers can shrug off the luridness of the
saga and be entertained by the wackiness of how these two Bronx
natives ended up together.

Both of them appear in Crazy Love to
narrate their story, accompanied by old photos, archival footage,
and shots of an old-school, glamorous New York. Burt was a wealthy
ambulance-chaser  in his early 30s when he spotted Linda, a
20-year-old beauty, sitting on a bench in 1957. As he says now, he
“had to have her” — a sentiment that’ll be repeated frequently,
by Burt as well as other commentators – and struck up a
conversation. Linda humored him but was far from enamored: “I
thought he was very weird,” she says in her gravely Bronx accent.
“I probably gave him my phone number just to get rid of him.” She
began to feel differently, though, when Burt showed her the good
life, which included socializing at his nightclub, flying in his
private plane, and generally living like stars. “I believe that
Burt fell in love with Linda,” a friend of hers says. “I believe
that Linda was impressed with Burt.”

They remained a couple until ‘59, when
Linda found out that her fawning boyfriend was married. He promised
to divorce his wife, even going to far as to fabricate papers. But
that was finally enough for  Linda to kick him to the curb. She began
dating someone else and got engaged. Burt was desperate to get her
back. When she refused, he hired a few goons to go to her home and
throw lye in her face. (Though he claims he wanted merely “to beat
her up.”) Linda was disfigured and almost completely blinded. Burt
went to jail after a circus of a trial in which he acted as his own
lawyer, tried repeatedly to delay proceedings, and even slit his
wrists in an attempt to use an insanity plea. Linda claims that at
that time, “If someone told me Burt was dead, I would have said,
‘Wonderful.’”

Then, in 1974, Burt and Linda became
husband and wife.

That’s hardly a spoiler, as there are
plenty of other tabloid-worthy twists that occur during Burt’s
incarceration as well as after they’d wed. The now-elderly pair seem
to enjoy giving a play-by-play here and are, admittedly, engrossing:
Linda, with giant Liz Taylor hair and flashy sunglasses, seems a
tough, colorful, no-nonsense type, expressing with her eyebrows and
drags of her long cigarette what her eyes cannot. Burt, meanwhile, is
more of a mystery. In a suit with a white goatee and glasses, Burt
looks and even sounds – at least if you weren’t listening closely
to his words – like a smart former businessman and playboy who’s
still sharp at 80. But when he casually relates his lies and
wrongdoings, from his affairs to his negligence practices to his
assault on  Linda, Burt is coolly detached and matter-of-fact.
There’s debate in the film over the state of his mental health.
Though some of the interview subjects dismiss the idea that he’s a
psychopath, journalist Jimmy Breslin claims, “Nobody is as visibly
insane as Burton Pugach.”

It’s a tough call, especially
considering that the couple are clearly happy to categorize their
disturbed history as simply a wild ride. They bicker and putter
around like most pairs who’ve known each other 50 years, and unlike
dirt-digging documentaries such as 2003’s Capturing the Friedmans,
Crazy Love tries as hard as its subjects to make light of the story’s
unsettling elements. Sensational headlines from old papers are shown,
as well as photos of Burt looking wild-eyed as he’s escorted to
prison. But one buddy of his laughs about Burt’s life (“They say
even Hitler had friends – whaddya gonna do?”) and the young Linda
appears to be having the time of her life after the incident,
traveling around the world and picking up suitors despite her
handicap. (At least until she was comfortable enough to take off the
sunglasses – Linda concedes that she married Burt partly because
she was “damaged goods.”) Worse, though, is the film’s
soundtrack: Buddy Clark’s “Linda” gets a pass, especially
considering Burt constantly had it played for her. But “Poison
Ivy?” “You Really Got a Hold on Me?”  “Burning Love?!”

It’s difficult, too, not to take the
central issues of stalking and domestic violence and put them in
today’s context. After Linda was injured, for example, she received
24-hour police protection – how often does that happen now? Theirs
also is no longer such a unique story; obviously many women still
decide to stay with their abusers, usually with not-so-cheerful
results. And, of course, though the main message here is supposed to
be the adaptability of humans willing to compartmentalize emotions to
serve their best interests, the subtext is that if you harass and
even harm an estranged love interest, you’ll eventually win that
person back. Crazy Love does, however, encourage the idea that
sometimes first impressions are best heeded: When Burt introduced
himself, Linda says, “I looked at him like he was a nut.” 

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

Not another meeting!

Severance is the story of terrible
things that couldn’t have happened to funnier people. British
writer-director Christopher Smith’s second film (after 2004’s Creep)
is a horror movie that thinks it’s a comedy. But it’s not a
straight-up joke machine like Shaun of the Dead. Nor is it parodic,
like the Scream series. Think more along the lines of what you’d get
if the gang from The Office schlepped to the forest for a
team-building weekend, only to discover that their bumbling boss may
have very well led them to their deaths.

The opening-credits scene that pairs
the bouncy oldie “Ichychoo Park” with an image of blood pouring
over the face of a man hanging upside-down is the first sign that
Severence is going to be a bit different. The film then backs up to
introduce six eye-rolling pawns and their manager. They’re from the
European branch of Palisade Defence, an international weapons firm,
and they’re unenthusiastically headed toward a lodge in Hungary when
a tree branch across a main road prevents their bus from delivering
them to the accommodations. The reactions vary: The uptight Harris
(Toby Stephens) just wants to go back to the hotel. Butt-kisser
Gordon (Andy Nyman) thinks this is great opportunity to begin to work
on working together. Maggie (Laura Harris), Jill (Claudie Blakley),
and Billy (Babou Cessay) give up on trying to convince their boss,
Richard (Tim McInnerny), that his map is worthless and agree to
follow him on foot. Steve (Danny Dyer) is high off his ass and
doesn’t care what’s going on. He claims to have seen someone in the
woods, but the others imagine that he’s seeing lots of things and
ignore him.

The employees lose even more team
spirit when they discover that their “luxury” lodge is just a
dump, despite Richard’s pathetic attempts to rouse them with tropes
such as “I can’t spell ’success’ without ‘u’ – and you and you
and you!” (“There’s only one ‘u’ in ’success,’” someone
responds.) With nothing better to do, a few of them offer up ghost
stories: The lodge was once an asylum, where the patients murdered
the doctors. Or a prison for war criminals, against whom Palisade
weapons were used. All of them – well, most of them – fancy
themselves too smart to really believe any of the theories. But when
Harris and Jill wander about the next day to look for a cell-phone
signal and find their bus crashed and the driver dead in a
non-accidental way, panic sets in.

Smith and co-writer James Moran hold
off until past the halfway mark to really bring on the bloodshed,
which the director makes selectively graphic instead of dripping each
scene in gore. Even now there are bits of humor – such as an
aftereffect of a decapitation that was foreshadowed in earlier
bickering – but the slasher element is primary. The action is the
usual cat-and-mouse, but there’s one important difference that
separates Severance from most like company: From the spineless boss
to the bitter smartass to the class clown, the dryly comic
interactions that came before the chase warm you to these characters.
They’re familiar, entertaining people, not cliched targets, so you’re
actually invested by the time the killing comes around. If nothing
else, Severance will make you realize that even if surrounded
by
people who drive you crazy, your worst day at the office isn’t really
all that bad.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

At least it’s not herpes

Bug originated as a piece of theater –
and arguably continues to be one. Tracy Letts’ adaptation of her own
play, directed by The Exorcist’s William Friedkin, will bore the hell
out of anyone approaching it as a, well, movie. Especially one of the
horror variety: “Experimental” is the description that sticks to
Bug best, and though it’s got shades of other far-out fare such as
the work of David Cronenberg, the material is so deliberately paced
and deeply psychological that it nearly requires little more than a
black box to be truly engaging.

Ashley Judd, puffy-eyed and without
makeup, stars as Agnes, an Oklahoma barmaid who’s living in run-down
motel. Agnes’ social life consists of drinking alone and getting
crank calls from her estranged husband, Jerry (Harry Connick Jr.),
who recently got out of jail. Jerry eventually shows his face to make
threats and push her around, but she doesn’t worry too much, because
the night before a friend introduced her to Peter (Michael Shannon).
Peter’s weird stare matches his weird conversation — “They want
you to know they’re there,” he says of “machines” that whir in
the night – but because he has nowhere to go, Agnes allows him to
crash on the couch. Love comes to town. So do bugs.

Allegedly, at least. Letts’ story is
ultimately an extreme cautionary tale about how a little bit of
passion can make you do magnificently fucked-up things. Agnes at
first can’t see the critters that Peter claim are biting him in bed.
(Aphids, he declares them, after patiently explaining the
lunatic-recognized differences between fleas, lice, ticks, and the
like.) But soon she feels them, too, and believes Peter when he
confides that the military actually planted the bugs in his blood.
Now it becomes the two of them against the world: Agnes accuses her
friend, R.C. (Lynn Collins), of turning on her when R.C. insists that
Peter is bad news, and she buys that the motel manager is part of a
conspiracy when he claims no other rooms have reported insect
problems. The couple barricade themselves and develop a logic all
their own.

Even if you approach the film with a
made-for-stage mindset, Bug has its problems. Letts seems to have
devoted the majority of her effort toward developing Peter, and the
character is terrific – his initial social awkwardness borders on
the autistic, and the tangles of theories he slowly lets Agnes know
are clouding his head are paranoid-schizophrenic intricate. You like
him, though, because the complexity of his thoughts first makes him
seem smart. And the way he patiently explains them to his backwoods
girlfriend without talking down? Compared to the brutish Jerry, Agnes
has found a prince. But the attention to Peter makes the rest of the
work suffer: Mainly, Agnes catches crazy too fast. Though the
character has a psychological crack waiting to bust open – she and
Jerry had a son, who disappeared when she took him grocery shopping
10 years ago – her spiral into psycho-shrillness is unbelievably
instantaneous. Letts doesn’t help her her anti-heroine any by
stuffing words into her mouth, with one monologue in particular
running an excruciating length.

Judd’s performance is manic and raw;
you may dismiss Agnes as silly, but the sweet-faced actress is
uncharacteristically intense. Shannon, however, is the film’s
redeemer as he reprises the role he originated on stage. His wide-set
eyes first offset his strong, squared jaw and suggest his Peter’s
merely a gentle giant. Later, though, the madness in Shannon’s
expression combines with the drying blood all over Peter’s
wound-covered body to give the impression of a monster. It’s this
character, not the presence of creepy-crawlies, that provides the
true horror in Bug. The problem is that you may have to  mentally
strip away the cinema to see it.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

The things I do for a paycheck…

Can you take Crash Davis seriously as a bad guy? Kevin Costner, so good at inhabiting characters from baseball players to…baseball players, tries to find his dark side in Mr. Brooks, writer-director Bruce A. Evans’ thriller about a man who isn’t quite what he seems to be: A righteous citizen and family man, Mr. Brooks also turns out to be Mr. Serial Killer.

In Costner’s hands, though, he’s more like a big meanie with a petulant scowl, OCD tendencies, and pretty good aim. We even get an additional actor (William Hurt) to play Brooks‘ shoulder-devil, helpfully sparing Costner from having to project too much inner malevolence. Hurt’s performance as the goading Marshall — "Why do you fight it?" he asks in a deliciously evil rumble — is the best thing about the movie. The character himself, though, wears out his welcome (really, does no one notice Brooks talking to himself?), as does Evans’ and co-writer Raymond Gideon’s contrived plot.

When the story begins, the serenity-prayer-spouting Brooks has been attending AA meetings for a couple of years, trying to control his "addiction." But as an opening placard ridiculously warns, "The hunger has returned to Mr. Brooks‘ brain!" He’s been following a young couple and decides to go for a last hurrah, meticulously planned and executed in a manner that the authorities have come to expect from the so-called "Thumbprint Killer." Assigned to the case is Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore), a — guess what? — headstrong woman who "can’t ask for help," even though she’s going through a draining divorce and dealing with the escape of another murderer she’d put behind bars. After he’s gotten the urge out of his system, Brooks(Danielle Panabaker) appears to have an issue of her own, which is\u003cbr /\>supposed to be, uh, deadly serious but will more likely give you a\u003cbr /\>good laugh. Mr. Brooks\’ somewhat intriguing premise is marred by cheap\u003cbr /\>scares, unbelievable plot points, and a rather sickening attitude,\u003cbr /\>mostly courtesy of Cane\’s usually pouty character, who yelps "Yes! You\u003cbr /\>are the *man*!" after he watches his mentor murder again. Costner\’s\u003cbr /\>not the man here, but he\’s far from the worst part of the film –\u003cbr /\>which may be Mr. Brooks\’ most unbelievable twist. –Tricia Olszewski\u003cbr /\>\u003c/div\>”,0]
);
D(["ce"]);

//–>’ life gets complicated as well. One, an amateur photographer (Dane Cook) happened to see him in the couple’s apartment and snapped a picture — and is so excited by it that he wants to learn to kill, too. And two, Brooks‘ daughter (Danielle Panabaker) appears to have an issue of her own, which is supposed to be, uh, deadly serious but will more likely give you a good laugh.

Mr. Brooks‘ somewhat intriguing premise is marred by cheap scares, unbelievable plot points, and a rather sickening attitude, mostly courtesy of Cane’s usually pouty character, who yelps "Yes! You are the man!" after he watches his mentor murder again. Costner’s not the man here, but he’s far from the worst part of the film — which may be Mr. Brooks‘ most unbelievable twist.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

For much of Red Road, the protagonist’s
emotional stability is in question. Jackie (Kate Dickie) is a Glasgow
security guard, keeping eye on the city via its closed-circuit TV
setup. The job is usually as monotonous as her reclusive life –
occasionally a dog or a couple going at it on the monitors will make
her smile, but mostly it’s zooming in on a whole lot of nothing. She
receives a visual slap, though, when she spots a man she recognizes
and becomes obsessed with following him, both with the cameras and,
more dangerously it seems, on foot.

Oscar-winning short-film
writer-director Andrea Arnold makes her feature debut here. Red Road
is the first of a trilogy concept in which three new filmmakers are
given descriptions of the same main characters (by Anders Thomas
Jensen and Lone Scherfig) and asked to fashion a story connecting
them. Both Red Road leads, Dickie and Tony Curran (who plays Clyde,
the mystery man) will appear in all the movies.

The British Arnold got the series off
on a good start. Red Road is cryptic and eerily quiet as Jackie goes
about her days. Very little information is given about Clyde: We know
he’s been in prison, and we know Jackie is disturbed that he’s out.
As she skulks around corners and holds her head down while trailing
him, it increasingly seems as if Jackie has lost her damn mind. Her
obsession while on the job becomes so consuming that she misses the
stabbing of a young girl because she was fixated on Clyde. Off duty,
she’s willing to so deeply enter the danger zone that she even talks
to Clyde’s friends and attends one of his parties, the details of
which she pieced together in her spying. The only glimpse of Jackie’s
personal life is through an invitation to a wedding, which we find
out is her sister-in-law’s. What can only be her father-in-law –
obviously both are former – has a strained relationship with
Jackie, and it’s because, well, she knows why.

The few supporting characters in Red
Road are seedy, adding to the film’s bleak tone. There’s Jackie’s
hit-and-run boyfriend, who takes her out into a field in his truck
for 10-minute dates that she doesn’t seem too happy about. We spend
the most time, though, with Clyde’s hotheaded fuckup friend, Stevie
(Martin Compston) and Stevie’s spaced-out girlfriend, April (Nathalie
Press). Stevie steals Jackie’s purse, gets into bar fights, and
spends the whole day drinking, loudening the alarm that she should
stay the hell out of Clyde’s world. (The fact that Dickie looks a
good 10 years older than these two as well only makes their
interactions more uncomfortable.)

Dickie is understated and natural as
Jackie, but Curran is a particularly inspired choice for Clyde. A
curly redhead with a bit of a baby face, the actor looks more like a
frat boy than a typical movie villain. It’s all tantalizingly
misleading, and though you’ll probably figure out the story before
its end, Red Road is satisfying nonetheless. And don’t scoff at the
film’s subtitles: It may seem ridiculous to translate accented
English, but considering the thick brogues, it actually turns out to
be a relief to have only one mystery to solve.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

"Avon lady!"

28 Weeks Later is horrific, gross, and
intense from beginning to end. It’s also depressing as hell. The
sequel to the 2002 British hit 28 Days Later borrows the dark tone
from Danny Boyles’ apocalyptic nightmare and adds another coat of
bleak. The focus is no longer on the survivors of a viral epidemic
that turned England into a zombie factory; rather, new director and
co-writer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is subtly but unmistakably more
interested in the carnage. Sure, we have protagonists to root for,
this time a small family and some conscientious military personnel.
But who really cares about them when there’s nonstop bloodletting to
get to?

As the title tells you, 28 Weeks Later
takes place about six months after the original ended. The infected –
who instantly turn into ravenous, blood-puking maniacs after being
exposed to the “Rage” virus – are believed to have all starved
to death, and a U.S.-led NATO force has been brought in to begin
reconstruction. Slowly, carefully screened people are brought back
into London and set up in a small section of the city that’s been
declared safe. It’s here that handyman Don (Robert Carlyle) reunites
with his children, 12-year-old Andy (newcomer Mackintosh Muggleton)
and his older sister, Tammy (the striking Imogen Poots), who were in
a Spanish refugee camp during the outbreak. As for their mother
(Catherine McCormack), well, Don sort of left her for dead when the
house the couple holed up in was attacked.

Don tries to explain to them what the
situation was like, but kids being kids, they run off outside the
safe zone to visit their home and grab pictures of Mum. Imagine their
surprise when they discover their Kodak moments haven’t necessarily
come to an end – their mother’s there, hiding, shocked but still
alive. (Um, what happened again, Dad?) It’s not long, however, before
the virus sneaks back into the quarantine, the soldiers declare Code
“Shoot Everything That Moves” Red, and the siblings are suddenly
so precious that people could just gobble them up.

As anyone who’s seen the original
knows, this franchise, like the Hostels and Hills Have Eyes of the
New Horror trend, is not about camp. One-liners and those goofy
slow-moving members of the old-school undead are absent, replaced by
talk of hopelessness and monsters that seem to need a good exorcism
more than a fresh supply of brains. There’s even a lame attempt at
political commentary if you choose to look for it: “They’re
shooting everyone!” says a citizen about the military. “This
makes no sense!”

Those who’d rather ignore allusions to
Iraq will also probably let slide bits of stupidity – though few
are as glaring as in your typical American horror flick – that
allow the plot to proceed as it does. It’s the best way to approach
the movie. Fresnadillo isn’t exactly the new king of fright, relying
too heavily on a shaky camera that results in several confusingly
chaotic sequences and whipping out the loud, cheap scare from the
Hack’s Bag of Tricks. But the director’s gift for creating atmosphere
is undeniable: Besides the gallons of gore, there are several aerial
shots of London, freakily deserted and dark; terrific action (when
you can actually focus) such as the firebombing of the city and a
helicopter-tuned-Cuisenart; and, more remarkably, lots and lots of
quiet. People are wordless, the excellent score (by John Murphy) is
used sparingly – in contrast to the mania, the effect is
unsettling. You’ll jump, squirm, and grip your armrest, but mostly 28
Weeks Later will leave you with a lingering sense of unease.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com

e
There’s no makeup in prison?

You’re supposed to be horrified at the
goings-on in Provoked: A True Story. As the subtitle trumpets, the
drama is based on the experiences of a Punjabi woman named Kiranjit
Ahluwalia, who was wed to a British Indian through an arranged
marriage and spent the next 10 years being physically and mentally
abused by him. Until, that is, the night in 1989 when she waited for
him to fall asleep, doused his legs with gasoline, and set him on
fire. Ahluwalia was immediately arrested on attempted murder charges;
when  her husband died from his injuries, she got handed a life
sentence. The case is most notable, though, because it became a
landmark in British criminal law, the first time (in Ahluwalia’s 1992
appeal) that “battered woman syndrome” became an acceptable
defense for murder.

Unfortunately, director Jag Mundhra
takes these truths and  fashions them into sub-Lifetime material.
Written by Rahila Gupta (the woman who helped Ahluwalia pen her
memoir) and Carl Austin, Provoked irritates more often than it
elicits sympathy with its simplistic portrayal of the ordeal.
Aishwarya Rai, famously declared the world’s most beautiful woman,
proves that she’s far from the world’s most talented actress in her
turn as Ahluwalia. It’s understandable that the character would be
traumatized after the incident and, considering she spoke little
English, shy about communicating. But Rai’s widdle-girl voice when
Ahluwalia does peep — “He sleep with other womans!” — is
perpetually grating. And combined with her go-to expression – blank
stare, occasionally tweaked with frightened-animal anime eyes – Rai
grows nearly intolerable to watch, dialing up Ahluwalia’s passivity
to caricature levels better suited for, well, maybe a production by
Waiting for Guffman’s Corky St. Clair.

Provoked begins on the night of the
crime. After an off-camera person torches Deepak (Lost’s Naveen
Andrews), we see Ahluwalia sitting outside her home with her two
children, unresponsive to the authorities on the scene. She remains
largely mute throughout questioning and even after being sent to
jail, where guards mispronounce her name and a fellow inmate calls
her “Asian Barbie.” (This astute geographical assessment by a
boorish bully is one of the more egregious missteps in the often
ridiculous script.) But Ahluwalia begins to open up thanks to her
cell mate, Ronnie (Miranda Richardson), the Henry Higgins of the
prison world who not only teaches delicate Ahluwalia to stand up to
ruffians, but also encourages her to get a new look and dramatically
improves her English as well. (“I need ‘U’?” Ahluwalia asks
Ronnie when she misspells “shoulder” during a Scrabble game.
“Yes, you need me!” Ronnie responds, in case you weren’t hip to
her magic.)

Mundhra, who’s mainly known for
directing erotic thrillers, is terrifically awkward with the
material, persistently cueing flashbacks by using things as generic
as a meal to set off Ahluwalia’s memories. Besides Deepak’s brief
hospital stay – in which he mutters to a nurse, “Bitch tried to
kill me” — these scenes are our only exposure to the character,
and they’re not exactly well-rounded. Deepak threatens, yells, throws
his wife down stairs, etc., all without any indication of what drives
him to such violence. Andrews, therefore, can’t help but come off as
paper-thin villain. Also ineffective is Nandita Das as the head of an
advocacy group that helps Ahluwalia, acting shrill instead of
passionate and throwing  school-play tantrums when something doesn’t
go their way. Provoked does get better in its last chapters, helped
by Robbie Coltrane as a member of the Queen’s Counsel who guides
Ahluwalia and her supporters in their attempt to appeal. But neither
the film’s decent coda nor tragic subject matter can overcome its
amateurish telling.

copyright 2007 themoviebabe.com