The Provocateur

I'm almost 40, and this movie felt like a throwback to those B-movie steamy-thriller movies on late night TV in the early 00s.

B-movie thrillers get a bad rap in some circles. I judge them for what they are; low-budget and formulaic, but that doesn't mean that they can't be enjoyable. I also think some people find enjoyment in the formulaic nature of them, because they offer comfort through predictability, and a happy ending.

I think reviewers here are being overly harsh on this film, but everyone has their own taste.

I came across this film because my mother is a big fan of B-movie thrillers. I was heading out the door, and caught the dinner party scene and I liked what I saw. I loved the pacing of the scene, and being a single male I also like the look of Katie Reese, so I decided to watch it at a later date.

I'll review it by taking it for what it is; a B-movie PG-13 steamy-thriller. No point in complaining about it being formulaic. The goal is to give us enough scenes of tension and eroticism that it's entertaining and arousing.

Positives;

Christie Will Wolf is the director and writer and her strength for me was undoubtedly the steamy scenes. She's able to create a slow building tension towards erotic scenes with great cinematography. I would like to see her do a higher rated softcore movie.

Kate Reese is the lead (Hope), and she has a bright presence, and incredible body. She made her character likable, I think just due to her natural energy. (At this stage in her acting career I can't see her playing the lead in a mainstream movie or TV show, but I can see her in more B-tier steamy-thriller genre movies or TV series, whilst she strengthens her acting skills. For me her strengths are her bright energy and sensuality, no doubt due to her dancer background.)

Victor Alfieri plays a charming gentleman (James), he made his character deeply caring, whilst also being capable of being playfully dominant. A counter to the character of the toxic masculinity of Arnie.

Together Katie and Victor created slow and sensual steamy scenes together.

Gregg Weiner (Arnie) for me he was the standout actor, playing the menacing husband with high intensity. I thought his final speech was convincingly delivered.

The standout scene for me was the dinner party. The scene plays out interspersed with the images and music of the violinist's at dinner, I thought the pacing was great. The director clearly has talent to be able to create a scene like that.

The best parts of the movie, were - understandably - the main selling point of this movie; the steamy-scenes. It's a lifetime movie and PG-13 so this is very-softcore, but there is enough implied semi-nudity and foreplay to genuinely be arousing (unless someone has spent way to much time watching 'the hub'). Katie was at her best acting in these scenes, likely due to her dancing background where sensual couples performances are common.

A number of scenes were genuinely tense.

The sets looked gorgeous.

I loved the soundtrack.

Negatives:

At times I felt that the the dialog was really unrealistic, sometimes people speak far to formally and logically (e.g. Hope talking to Arnie in the hospital "Further... in lieu of...", or when Hope was talking to the cop in her apartment "...with respect to...", way too formal for the emotion of the situation). When this happened it was distracting, and took me out of the movie. It was as if Christie Will Wolf had put parts of her script through an AI grammar checker, and the AI had rearranged the sentences to be formally correct but soulless.

A large part of what I also think let the movie down were any of the dialogue scenes where Hope wasn't interacting with James or Arnie. I think that Hope's character was at her best when acting with James, in terms of dialogue and Katie's acting, but I think her Hope's interactions with others struggled due to the dialogue and without Katie being bolstered by Victor's presence which seemed to have brought out the best in here.

Conclusion:

I gave it a 5 out of 10 because while I think the film has some great scenes, outside of those scenes the dialogue and acting took me out of the movie.

My advice is to enjoy it on an evening when you are in the mood for a very-softcore steamy-thriller that you can switch your brain off and enjoy.

######

Why I wrote this review:

I was motivated to write this review to give encouragement and visibility to movies that portray sexuality in a more sensual way. We have an overwhelming amount of 'hardcore' portrayals of sexuality even in mainstream movies (e.g. 365 days and Fifty Shades of Grey). Watching old late night softcore movies from the 90s and early 00s shows sexuality portrayed as sensual and passionate. (I'm not saying that we as a society can't or shouldn't have aggressive or vulgar portrayals of sexuality. I'm just saying that I think media is 'out of balance' and needs more sensuality.)

Another reason why I like this movie was that the leading man was not an 'alpha male' or a bad-boy-turned-good (e.g. 365 days and Fifty Shades of Grey), he's a charming gentleman. I think we also need more portrayals of men like that, especially in today's climate where 'alpha males' with toxic masculinity have become very popular with young men on social media, and with women in movies (e.g. 365 Days and Fifty Shades of Grey).

Could not be worse.. Kinda creepy movies and no one could make it worse.. Everyone is so freshman in filming, writing and directing.

One of movies you wish you never seen.

No wonder nobody famous has been involved in the movies.

Which means it fails at selling the storyline of these two "lovers." Putting "passion" in the title, but not having it between the characters is just setting yourself up to fail. This is one of those movies that more seasoned Lifetime actors and actresses would have never taken.

The scene at the violin concert was so cringe that I stopped myself from laughing. It was supposed to be dramatic with the strings in the background, but it did not work. I really don't want to go through the plot, because I'm working on not doing that i my reviews, but you can give this a miss. It's one of the worst of the year.

There is no twist if you're expecting one. And I low key was. But it's all played straight and there are no surprises. Even the couple of jump scares (which get me in any movie) weren't great.

She's being harassed by a stranger, so she puts her safety in the hands of a stranger?? Mmkay. The soft core description that other contributors are giving is accurate, but unfortunately for this movie, they don't even qualify for those late night Showtime movies from the 90s. They lacked all chem and I'm just like, why is she so trusting of this total stranger? Maybe it's bad acting or bad direction (or both), but she's never believably vulnerable even though her life is being threatened. I get this new relationship is supposed to "reignite" something in her, but the lead actress is so one note and charisma-less that I can't bring myself to care. Also what does the A plot (her stalker) and the B plot (their "passion) have to do with each other lol? Either plotline could have been dropped and it wouldn't have substantially affected the movie at all.

Filler movie, terrible movie, give it a pass.

Another thing that irritated me about this movie is, people lose phones all the time. The fact that she didn't 1.get a new one or 2.call her phone company to turn it off etc etc just shows this movie is using very old plot points for this. It's simply not believable that she would not have had her phone bricked to help deal with what her stalker was doing. No, to her it made more sense to try to go to his house and retrieve it.

"The Provocateur," or on my cable station "The Art of Passion," is not a very good Lifetime movie. The only thing that kept me going was that it was about art and started with a good song that I unfortunately could not find on youtube. I was able to find a few others including Sky, Sand & Sea by Alexandra Staseson and Yellow Daffodils by Malia feat. Eric Truffaz. Both of which are excellent. The movie, however, not so much.

There were several things wrong, first, the two stories the stalking and the supposedly steamy romance between the artist and the doctor--the plot jumps from one the other in a way that is jarring. They'll be talking about the stalking then the music will change to cue, the sultry part of the movie was back again. It was hard to invest in either plot.

I would not have minded that so much, but the lead actress played the role like she was a college student. Not a sophisticated emergency room physician.

At one point this was her dialog: "anyways what time is it at?" And she sounded this juvenile and unsophisticated throughout the movie. It almost seemed like an older man/younger woman movie, but he was only slightly older. Forties to her late 30s. Not a big enough age gap.

Now the artist was straight yummy! After a black tie event, they went to his place, and he changed into his artist's wear--unbuttoned shirt, casual trousers and picked up his sketch pad ...whew that was hot.

But it was all wasted tho. Thanks to his unconvincing love interest.

I expected so much more from this movie. Was the plot about sex or the life of Hope being threatened? The sex scenes were totally ridiculous especially the shower scene. I would put that more in the category of pornography. For a girl who supposedly was supposed to be so conservative, she certainly didn't live up to that image. As for Victor Alfieri, his acting was mediocre and it seemed that his body exposure played a very important role. There was little chemistry between Hope and James especially during that horrible dance routine or whatever you want to call it. I think that Victor should be more selective in the movie roles that he chooses.