A Prayer for Rain | Telescope Film
A Prayer for Rain

A Prayer for Rain

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This drama tells the story of the 1984 Bhopal disaster in central India, in which a gas leak killed thousands in history's deadliest industrial disaster. Examining the events from multiple perspectives, including journalists and workers, the film shows the negligence that led to the tragedy and shines a light on the lives it destroyed.

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What are critics saying?

70

Los Angeles Times by Martin Tsai

Through "Bhopal," the filmmaker argues that the promise of jobs and prosperity all too often trumps environmental and safety concerns, and it leads government to ignore corporate wrongdoing.

70

The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck

Arriving three decades after the fact, this docudrama doesn't quite do justice to its important subject.

63

Chicago Sun-Times by Bruce Ingram

While Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, an earnest account of the world’s worst industrial accident, certainly has its heart in the right place, it’s not good that the closing titles about the cold, brutal facts of the aftermath stir more outrage than the preceding docudrama.

50

Washington Post by Stephanie Merry

Some of the portrayals are over-the-top in their villainy, and the dialogue, acting and music all tend to be melodramatic. But all of the overt heartstring-pulling doesn’t add much. Given the awful calamity, the truth would have been enough to amp up the emotions.

50

Slant Magazine by Steve Macfarlane

The film places its characters in a reflexive historical continuum that dooms them to be mere demonstrative types from start to finish.

50

Village Voice by Sam Weisberg

It's an unsolved mystery in Hollywood why so many based-on-true-life polemical films end up so unremarkable.

30

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

This is crudely mounted, earnest advocacy, getting its points across at any cost.