Brian Bosworth....easily the greatest bust in NFL history. However you could make an argument that Tony Mandarich holds that badge of honor. The Green Bay Packers selected Mandarich in preference to Barry Sanders and Deion Sanders (and scores of other players available in a talent rich pool) in 1989, and remained mired in mediocrity, actually thats way too generous,... the Packers sucked ass for another decade! HA HA Assholes! So perhaps he is the second greatest bust. After leaving the football field in disgrace, Bosworth set his sights on another career in which he would most certainly fail. Acting. That failure is without question, complete with The Operative.

The Operative is the story of CIA undercover special 'operative' Alec Carville (played by Brian Bosworth) who after years of service to his country is left behind in Russia during operations. Of course this is the typical M.O. of the government, when a field agent is caught behind enemy lines....deny, deny, deny. Carville is then imprisoned for a little over a decade within an Russian Asylum. Prior to his detention, the Operative opens by showing us how much Agent Carville cares about his Russian counterpart Sonya Orlova. He's fucking her. Sonya and Carville's love grows stronger than their loyalty to their countries. Perhaps that is why, both Russian and the United States left them to rot? This is really the deepest part of this film. The next hour and change is a formulaic piece of shit.

Here's the rundown:

Carville escapes from his prison (took the asshole 11 years to do it). Carville is recaptured by the Russian asshole who put him in prison. Russian asshole has Carville's girlfriend held hostage, and will release her, if Carville completes a job....for said asshole. Carville goes to America to complete assignment.

Ok, lets talk about the assignment. Carville is to impersonate an Oil Tycoon, named Felix Grady, enter his bank, and while assuming his identity, transfer funds from his account to buy a painting which the bank is holding in escrow. The twist here, is that Bosworth plays both parts. They are both essentially the same character, except Felix Grady has long sideburns and a really bad Southern accent. Why is that the worst actors on the planet always attempt this duality of man, twin, clone thing? Van Damme has actually done it twice! Baffling. That's as retarded as electing Schwarzenegger governor....ooops. Ok back to the rundown:

During assignment, Oil Tycoon that Carville is impersonating, shows up to the bank ahead of schedule. All hell breaks loose. The Operative becomes your standand bank robbery / hostage movie (i.e. Swordfish, Heat, etc.). Blah blah blah. Carville saves the day, gets the painting (the painting, by the way, is a cheesy knockoff of Van Gogh's Starry Night, which was apparently painted by Sonja for Carville, and supposedly there is some special meaning to it, but I was so fucking bored at this point, I would have missed a message painted on a pair of boobs....ok, maybe not that message, but all the other ones), beats the shit out of the Russian guy with a baseball bat and then goes back to the prison he escaped from and finds his Russian whore.

There's this whole U.S. government cover up thing going on during the bank heist also, but as I said, this movie was so tedious, any cool plot twists they attempted were really not that cool, and frankly uneccessary...much like this whole fucking bad movie.

Given a choice between watching The Operative and being bound naked to a rusty metal chair, jumper cables attached to the testicles, chipotle sauce rubbed in the eyes while being bludgeoned repeatedly by a telephone wielding Russell Crowe......I'm picking option #2, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Much like Bosworth's NFL career, the Operative is forgettable.

Hamlin Grade:1

Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
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