The Infiltrator – movie review

A tough and resolute, factually-based crime drama, The Infiltrator is centred on the actions of the drug cartels that infiltrated the US in the 1980s. The film, directed by Brad Furman and written by Ellen Brown Furman, comes from an autobiography of the same name by Robert Mazur.

Mazur (played by Bryan Cranston), a US Customs special agent, helped bust the operation of the biggest czar of them all, Colombian Pablo Escobar. At the height of his career, Escobar supplied an estimated 80 per cent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States and made 60 million dollars a day in personal income. To undo the big fish, Mazur went undercover as a highly successful and corrupt businessman, thereby jeopardising not only his own life, but that of his wife and two young children. Having been injured in a previous operation, Mazur could have chosen to be pensioned out of the bureau but he chose not to. Ever the family man, as he is drawn deeper into the web his wife Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey), becomes increasingly concerned that Mazur’s personality is changing. There is one pivotal scene, in particular, that leaves her both horrified and traumatised.

The cast also includes John Leguizamo as Mazur’s seemingly unorthodox, gung ho partner Emir Abreu (Cranston and Leguizamo previously worked together in The Lincoln Lawyer, which Furman directed). Diana Kruger plays Kathy Ertz, another special agent, who fills the role of Mazur’s fictitious fiancé, a ruse created by Mazur on the fly when he was in a particularly tricky situation with a contact he was trying to win over. There is definitely chemistry between the pair, which threatens to cross the divide between the professional and the personal. One step removed from Escobar is Roberto Alcaino, an impeccably dressed family man with a loving wife and daughter, played by Benjamin Bratt. It is ultimately he that Mazur and Ertz have to sweet-talk to become players in the big league. Along the way there is a host of middlemen, including intermediaries and corrupt bankers, that Mazur and his feisty partner have to engage with … forever taking small steps and being patient.

There’s a lot to like in the way this film has been put together. It carries with it a gritty realism. The pressures depicted appear true to life.

Cranston plays Mazur as a straight-as-a-die guy who is loath to step into the dark side of the surveillance game, which Abreu has no trouble doing. First this pair has to learn to get along, and then to trust one another, otherwise the operation is bound to end badly. And the deeper into the mire they go, the more likely they are to be undone. All the main players are strong, including Kruger as the undercover newbie, and the super smooth Bratt.

You can almost (I say almost) forget that his character’s charm covers up corruption and drug running that affected hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. Rated MA, The Infiltrator has power and punch and scores a 7.5-8 out of 10.

Director: Brad Furman
Cast: Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo, Dianne Kruger
Release Date: 1 September 2016
Rating: MA 15+

Alex First