The Operative

Nowadays many movies are being watched while the viewer is occupied by something else. No not that (though I am not judging if you do that while watching a movie), rather something like surfing or generally doing something on your phone/tablet. This movie can not be enjoyed that way nor can you win any satisfying experience either.

Diane Kruger is amazing in this movie and she once again proves that she can carry a movie. I really dig her performance here. Strong, yet fragile. Tough and vulnerable at the same time. Tension filled from start to finish, you really do care for her and her wishes. I love the shades of grey ... not everything is good, not everything is bad. Also when people are involved, it is tough to detach oneself from something or someone. Not to mention that you could argue that some things are ... well wouldn't happen if one wouldn't tease someone and more or less make them do things ... they otherwise wouldn't do

This film was certainly not as bad as some of the other reviews indicated. While not taking everything so seriously, the movie absolutely kept my interest, and there were some truly tense moments throughout the film. Definitely not boring at all, and the acting was excellent.

When a person is recruited to be a spy, agent, double agent, undercover to do the espionage job for certain organizations, agencies, or countries, he or she must have something either good or bad spotted by the recruiters. The normal scenario when and how that person was recruited, usually a college graduate, not just city college graduate, but an ivy league graduate with high I.Q. or something. Or, a guy who was working for the enemy country's intelligence organization; a guy either carried a deep resent against his or her own country, or he or she did something that was highly treasonable but was unfortunately discovered by the enemy intelligence organization, so he or she was blackmailed, coerced, threatened to become an spy or agent to collect damaging information and pass them to the recruiter or the handler.

But unfortunately, the woman in this movie seemed to have nothing to do with all of it. Why she agreed to be a spy for the Israelis? She got nothing hateful against Iran, she got no personal agenda against Iran, she did not particularly love Israel either. Neither she did the espionage works for Israel just because she got some financial problems and needed the money. The Israelis didn't pay her. So there's no motive or agenda for her to do a free job for the Israelis. And even ridiculous yet was she did not trained by the Israelis to be a spy. She's not qualified a bit to be a spy.

So what's the leverage the Israeli MOSSAD got on her? What's the collateral means that she'd do anything that the Israeli asked her to do? They actually needed her, so why they were so harsh on this volunteering woman who did free espionage dirty works for them. They should be very humble, very kind, even very grateful to her. But what we saw in this movie, all the Mossad Israelis seemed to be very rude, very vicious, very unkind to her. So why she'd have to take all those craps and still did the jobs for them? "I owe you nothing! So what's in it for me?" Any normal person would have asked the obvious question, but not this woman. She still did all the puppet jobs for the Israelis. It simply not logic enough. How could these viciously, unkindly, ungratefully Israelis took granted of her, and forced her to do the free service? There's no contract between them, unless she was threatened by them to do the job or else. What a bunch of loaded craps in this ridiculous scenario?

If without a tangible motive, reason, belief, faith, hatred, or whatever, there's no way she could do the espionage job for the Israelis. Not possible at all. When the basic motive to be a free lancer spy for the Israelis was missing, there's no incentive or passion or any loyalty needed or required to do such works for the Israelis. She even didn't thought to use condoms when she decided to have sexual relationship with the Iranian guy. Her liking and love to this Iranian guy was more realistic and personal, it's more romantic than the espionage job. She did have feelings toward this guy. I don't know about the original novel that was adapted into this movie, but the author of that book obviously didn't have any basic logic if this movie was faithfully adapted from it.

Both Diane Kruger and Martin Freeman are great actors, but they just followed the lousy script to act out and act along. They were on a one-way street to the end of this movie. What a pathetic way to get involved in this brainless movie.

When a young woman is recruited by the Mossad, she is sent to Tehran to work undercover. However she soon warms to the place and people and this may risk not only her career but also the plans of her employers. The Operative is one of those slow spy thrillers, it takes its time to build the characters and attempts are made to connect audiences to Diane Kruger's character. However the actual presentation of the story has some real pacing issues where I lost the plot many times. I get that this is meant to be a character driven film. But film makers such as Polanski (Chinatown) and Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor) have shown that the plot can take a backseat for characters. But there was still considerable amount of strings being pulled in the background to make it work. The stories were complex because there were many details that need to be uncovered. The Operative is convoluted because there is very little within the story and therefore the film makers try to hide that by dragging scenes out. By having scenes that are completely pointless. Diane Kruger is an extremely talented actress and this may actually be her best performance of her career. Her character is relatable to audiences but mysterious for them to ask the question who she really is. The rest of the cast feels rather wasted with other players including Martin Freeman, pop in and out of the picture. The movie on a technical level is competent but nothing shows of a unique vision. This makes The Operative feel like a generic spy caper that isn't even exciting. Perhaps if you browse by this film on Netflix and have nothing else to do, The Operative might be a film for that occasion. Otherwise, no recommendation from me.

Excellent slow boil espionage thriller. Flawless performances, brilliant screenplay and a slap in the face to expected norms.