Codice d'emergenza

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.

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.

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)

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.