Movie Review—The Infiltrator

he Infiltrator

by Peter J. O'Connell

The Infiltrator. Released: July 2016. Runtime: 127 mins. MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual content and drug material.

Bryan Cranston garnered attention and awards for five seasons on the cable TV series Breaking Bad, where he played a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who becomes a fearsome drug lord. Now in The Infiltrator Cranston plays Robert Mazur, a Customs agent who goes undercover to break up the money-laundering activities of the Medellin drug cartel, headed by the fearsome Pablo Escobar. The film, directed by Brad Furman, is based on fact.

Mazur's perilous assignment takes place in the wild-and-wooly Florida of the 1980s. The Customs Service's operation involving Mazur is focused, not on drug interdiction, but on tracing the drug traffickers' money in its labyrinthine passage through corrupt businesses and financial institutions, such as the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the world's seventh largest financial institution at the time.

For his role as a Mafioso connecting Escobar and BCCI, Mazur takes the name “Robert Musella” off a tombstone. His bling, cars, mansion, etc., are provided by forfeitures from other anti-drug operations. Mazur is aided by a streetwise agent, Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo), and assorted cons, ex-cons and confidential informants of questionable reliability. He also is provided with Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger), a young Customs agent who poses as his fiancee, so Mazur as Musella can avoid certain “entanglements” by claiming devotion to her. Mazur is actually a loving family man whose wife, Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey), is worried sick while he is undercover.

Mazur/Musella gradually gains the trust of the traffickers—and bankers—after some harrowing “initiations,” including one involving a voodoo-type cult. M/M is able to maintain his cool through these tense situations but also can turn on the hot rage when necessary, as in a scene in a restaurant reminiscent of Joe Pesci's famous “Do you think I'm funny?” scene in Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990). There is also a slight touch of regard on the part of M/M for one of the traffickers in particular, Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt). And Mazur begins to feel (non-romantic) affection for his partner, Kathy.

At times The Infiltrator approaches the crime epic stature of Scorsese's work or Michael Mann's Heat (1995) or Brian DePalma's Scarface (1983). Cranston's solid skills are in admirable evidence throughout, and the supporting cast is terrific. Diane Kruger, for example, a German actress pushing 40, effortlessly and convincingly plays an American woman in her mid-20s.

The Infiltrator evokes admiration for such lawmen and law women as Mazur and Ertz in the dangerous work that they do in defense of, really, civilization. The movie is admirable for evoking that admiration.