The storytelling also becomes a little muddled in the closing stretch, although the weapons-smuggling trip to the Turkish border is the pick of several tense set-pieces.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 30, 2025

Tense spy thriller contains sexual and graphic violence

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 24, 2020

The ingredients of an enjoyable spy flick are all present in The Operative, but they rarely come together.

| Jan 17, 2020

Three strong central performances can't overcome a lack of consistent suspense in this espionage thriller that generates a handful of taut twists yet too often settles for genre conventions.

| Aug 9, 2019

The Operative tackles Israel's intelligence efforts against Iran, but fails to resonate or be insightful. A good lead performance from Diane Kruger doesn't overcome the narrative problems.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 5, 2019

With a clumsy flashback structure, The Operative never quite reaches a full boil, coming off - like its heroine - as an entity without a country

| Aug 5, 2019

The Operative certainly operates on its own terms. I'm just not quite sure what they are.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 2, 2019

As far as modern espionage films go, 'The Operative' simply doesn't operate on the highest level: neither exceptional nor terrible, it falls in the mediocre middle.

| Original Score: C | Aug 2, 2019

The Operative is a bland and convoluted affair that struggles to keep the audience engaged and leaves minimal impact during its runtime.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 2, 2019

The Operative gets lost in its own machinations and clichés too much for me to highly recommend it.

| Aug 2, 2019

Failing both as a character drama and as a taut espionage drama, The Operative is a film as generic and uninspiring as its title that even fans of the genre will find wanting.

| Aug 2, 2019

An espionage story that gets us wondering who we trust and why.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 2, 2019

A solidly crafted if forgettable espionage thriller.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 2, 2019

The bulk of the story ... feels like the prologue to a more vital tale.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 2, 2019

Painfully slow and hardly captivating, "The Operative" is another generic thriller that'll come and go without so much as making a blip on anyone's radar.

| Original Score: D+ | Aug 1, 2019

Diane Kruger is finally getting the roles she deserves. This movie, though sometimes flawed, is worth seeing her performance alone.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 1, 2019

The film takes its sweet time, but it's a slow burn with twists that'll shock.

| Aug 1, 2019

As the film crawls towards its conclusion, there's not much of a sense of righteous anger in Rachel at her Israeli masters after she believes she's been used. Audiences will rightly feel they have been used too.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 1, 2019

A serviceable but not stylish filmmaker, Adler shoots office spaces and restaurants in a blandly shadowy style redolent of peak 온라인카지노추천.

| Aug 1, 2019

Fans of John le Carre should receive a mild charge out of "The Operative," which strives to be an intelligent understanding of espionage and the dangers emotional ties bring to the ways of government-sponsored spying.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 31, 2019