The Infiltrator *** (2016, Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo, Diane Kruger, Benjamin Bratt, Amy Ryan, Daniel Mays, Jason Isaacs, Olympia Dukakis) – Movie Review

Director Brad Furman’s intelligent and thoughtful real-life 2016 crime thriller focuses on Bryan Cranston’s strong and solid performance as Robert Mazur, a US Customs official who uncovers a money-laundering scheme involving Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and risks his life to infiltrate himself undercover into his set-up. It is the supposedly true story of one man battling the biggest drug cartel in history.

Good though main stars Cranston, and John Leguizamo (as Emir Abreu) and Diane Kruger (as Kathy Ertz) as his two partners are, it is the neglected Benjamin Bratt who gives the film’s best performance as Roberto Alcaino, the man Mazur infiltrates and betrays. Bratt is so good that sympathy leaks over to him and you feel sorry for his character.

It is an interesting, informative, entertaining, and sometimes even dynamic film, with strongly etched characters and some compelling sequences. And, racking up the tension, it is well crafted by Brad Furman who directed the excellent The Lincoln Lawyer (2011). But, frustratingly, somehow it remains persistently uninspired and not in any special way extraordinary, unable to go the extra mile and sit out from the crowd. Try as they might, there is no disguising that we have been here before.

It is written by Ellen Brown Furman, based on the book by the film’s main character, Robert Mazur.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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