User reviews

Let me start saying that I will avoid any spoiler but I will still get my point across.

This movie is not a realistic thriller-drama because it is so full of unrealistic events, from start to finish. Plot seemed interesting but it fell short rather quickly, featuring boring characters and most importantly a boring story. Ving Rhames is the only actor who manages to stand out positively. Special effects stand out too, but in a negative way because they are bad.

The soundtrack was satisfying and the ending was enjoyable, the last 15/20 minutes. Another positive fact? It lasts less than 90 minutes.

(4 stars out of 10)

When your movie is called Operator, it's best to have an actress with great acting playing the titular role. Mischa Barton does not even come close on delivering any convincing performance. However, it's not entirely on her as the plot drives in implausible loops for half the runtime, the part where fake explosions happen, and the rest is invested on strings of improbable occurrences.

In the same spirit of The Call starring Halle Berry, Pamela (Mischa Barton) is a 911 operator who is terrorized by a crime mastermind. The movies steps on every plot hole possible. Never mind that it's odd for a 911 call center to be hacked, or no one suspects anything when one of their operators is clearly in distress, it's mind-boggling that the so called plan is utterly devoid of logic and the movie continues to pretend as though it's realistic.

The overly complex scheme consists of timely event in impossible time frame, which gets worse when the movie tries to pull off more stunts. If that doesn't detach the viewer from reality, the subpar acting will. At least The Call, which has the same premise, is led by Halle Berry who gave a real effort and even that movie is still flawed. The operator has one fixed expression; mildly flabbergasted. Her reaction and action are simply too bland to be taken serious.

Luke Goss and Ving Rhames fare a bit better, perhaps because they are more familiar with action genre, although not by much and that doesn't exemplify them from mistakes too. At some points the motivation seems severely lacking. If this is about grand master plan of heist or to save a child's life, this must be the least enthusiastic police work as the lack of urgency is overwhelming.

With such faulty logic, more discern viewers would have a field day spotting the plot holes, and far from exuberant acting as though the characters know the logic is flawed, Operator's only spark is from cheap explosive and action, which don't amount to much.

I actually thought the actors were okay, for the most part, but there were quite a few instances where the reactions to certain circumstances seemed way off base. There were so many, that I finally quit counting..or caring.

I don't think I've ever given any other movie a 1-star rating, but this movie deserves it. There is no redeeming value to it whatsoever. It's sad to think that people spent time and money making this. I've seen better home movies.

All sorts of fallacies in "action movie logic" and interactions written that just wouldn't happen in any world, real or imagined, completely destroyed any hope of this movie being worth anything more than a glob of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Just terrible and awful, and I couldn't even laugh at it enough to make it entertaining in the least.

This film was so bad, I even felt sorry for the prop designers who had to make all those fake dollar bills in the back of the vans. There was one scene where the main woman was asked to describe her husband and she says "he has brown hair" cut to husband in the cop car...He's bold as a babies bottom and talking about babies bottoms his partner describes a girl having an "ass like a ten year old" now this might have been a joke but the way it was deliverer and how out of the blue it was, just make it creepy.

It seems to me that the characters where totally miss cast or very poorly directed but not even Spielberg at the helm would have make the story any better.

DO NOT WATCH!!!!

There occasionally comes a film so mind numbingly bad that it brings me to tears of rage. Step forward 'Operator', a film that's only discernible feature is a quite well done explosion towards the end of the film, an explosion that presumably blew up the film budget as well as the building.

This is my first ever review and, as I type through the tears of anger and despair, I question my very existence for subjecting myself to the entirety (88 minutes) of the film, watching in disbelief as the acting and transparent plot steadily deteriorated from its excruciatingly painful first half hour. I challenge anybody to find a film with worse acting than that which is contained within this tedious drivel.

I sat open mouthed in a boredom induced coma, as the actors delivered their lines minus any form of emotion, which is quite bizarre given the centrepiece of the plot involves the daughter of two of the main characters. The acting is so bad that it has given me hope that a life in films awaits me, and so I have chosen the sensible option and quit my 9-5 job to head to Hollywood.

This film gets 1/10 for the following reasons ;

1. There is no 0/10 option

2. The aforementioned explosion was the most believable thing in the whole film

WOW!!! For garbage. A veteran police officer wearing a Security Enforcement Officer badge (32:30). Besides that the badge and name tags are both on the wrong side of the uniform, even tho the badge stiches are easily seen about them. Great directing........for a third grader. Music overpowers the actors voices. And, the SWAT team loads their weapons AFTER they are in the dispatch center. Have you ever seen a real cop jack a round into their weapon.....EVER. I haven't, and was one for sixteen years. I only continued watching this movie to the end so I could complain about it here. GARBAGE.

My rational mind tells me I should dislike this film rather strongly, yet accepting it as a moderate-budget direct-to-video potboiler, I found it watchable.

The movie has a number of significant issues.

First, and most distracting, not a single shot looked as if the camera were locked down. Few things are more annoying than excessive use of jiggly-cam shots. The Steadicam operator did a credible job of masking the camera movement with subtle pans, tilts and zooms, but the constant motion is distracting.

Mischa Barton was absolutely stunning and statuesque ten years ago and had the looks to play the total babe leading lady roles often found in action films. Now she has the looks more often associated with romantic comedies – attractive, but not so stunningly beautiful to seem threatening to housewives in the audience. Several lines of dialogue comment on her ensemble and she is framed above the waist in every shot, even when a wider shot would seem better suited. Not being familiar with her or her prior work, my suspicion was that she was pregnant and the filmmakers wanted to mask it, which proved distracting as her character has supposedly been separated for a year. I've since learned that she is a designer, so the wardrobe may have been one of her designs.

Several plot twists were fairly obvious. The only one that caught me by surprise involved Ving Rhames.

The emergency call center procedures seemed realistic, except for failure to transfer calls to a busy line and the manner in which calls were assigned to operators, which seemed contrived. Some other police procedures seemed suspect.

Everything seemed to happen in a vacuum. There were no bystanders, pedestrians, motorists or people trying to enter the bank, and no employees or guards at two locations. With one exception, there was no other traffic on the roads during car chases or other driving shots.

Many aspects don't make sense. One would think the heist would require a team larger than Ali Baba's band of forty thieves, but they seem to have pulled it off with fewer than ten. People survive horrendous car accidents without wearing seat belts. A police officer fires at a location where a hostage is being held. Cellular tracking is uncannily precise. One officer wears an arm patch for DeKalb Technical College Public Safety Police.

The plot has more holes than a wheel of Emmental cheese. But despite the flaws, the movie is fairly enjoyable. Luke Goss does a credible job with what he's given. Ving Rhames plays a familiar role with a satisfying undercurrent of malice. The car chases are fairly good. Other than the seemingly complete reliance on jiggly-cam shots (and the Steadicam operator(s) did a superior job), the production values were adequate.

It's not a great film, but it's a pleasant distraction if one doesn't take it too seriously.

Worst movie of all time ! Waste of time. Horrible horrible movie !

Great cast. This movie had me on the edge of my seat,not knowing what was to come next. Great plot/story. I have to say most of Luke Goss'Film's usually have a happy ending, this one was no different, the good guys won.

Definitely an enjoyable action movie. It was fast paced and action packed and also had a tense and twist filled story which kept me watching. However,the way the twist are set in the movie could have been better. Most of the twist can be seen from a mile away. Also the acting from Mischa Barton could have been a lot better. Her character should have shown more emotion and shock since she was pushed into the situation all of a sudden.

For a low budget action movie,there was plenty of action scenes but some of it was ruined by the terrible cgi. It felt like the director wanted to make it look like a big budget action movie by making the explosions and set design bigger with cgi but it kinda backfired since the cgi makes it look cheaper. But even with all those flaws,the movie is perfectly enjoyable. A low expectation will guarantee a satisfied viewing for this movie.

I'd give the oscar to Mischa Barton for maintaining the same expression the whole movie, weather she talks to her daughter or a criminal. It could've been a great thriller bit it was like watching a video game...... no emotions. Waste of time.

Bad acting, bad script, looks like it was shot on camcorder.

The worst movie I have ever seen. Bad acting, bad effects, non sence.

The story was actually quite good. I liked the plot, even though some of the plot twists were very predictable right from the beginning.

However this movie is rather bad than good. The acting can be bitsy better, the lines can be a bit smarter, and the CGI.....The CGI is painfully horrible!

I don't regret the time spend on watching it, watch it if you are pretty bored, but otherwise I would not recommend it.

Whats a Disappointment! I saw the movie because of Ving Rhames, thinking it will be of good action along with other actors. Bad direction, firing shots seem from kids home movie effects. Misha Barton acting was so stiff and expressionless, it was a hopeless disappointment to see good actors career being bad patched on purpose.

Do not waste your time by watching this movie. Rewatch something you like.

The actors did a good job. It was obviously a low budget movie with bad special affects. I have seen a lot worse movies than this.

The actors are super ineffective. You won't see the severity of the situation on their faces.

The operator has a ridiculously unrealistic plot and within minutes, you feel dead inside because it provokes no thoughts, no emotions whatsoever! Incredibly slow and tedious with main characters you care nothing about because they are all so one dimensional. Mischa, the female lead, is so monotone in her delivery and emotionally lifeless that you begin to care nothing about what happens to her or her daughter, who is a real non-essential character throughout the movie. And 10 minutes in, you start to ask yourself just how DUMB is an entire police department and how blind and deaf is an entire 911 staff sitting just inches from one another! UGH! Don't waste a single moment watching this crap!

The story is full with flaws, bad acting and badly worked out scenario's. I was laughing at the Olsen Brothers when the closind credits appeared. Who in the world would want his name on such a terrible movie.

Really not much to say other than, Horrible acting!

Only reason I tried to watch is because of Ving Rhames but that wasn't enough. The leading lady is horrible, the police are horrible, everything about this movie is just Horrible.