Review of The Infiltrator (2016) by Leong C — 02 Apr 2017

The drug war has gifted us with many special films throughout the years. It continues to be a hotbed for stories both new and old even if it all of them fall under the umbrella of the same genre. So where The Infiltrator succeeds by telling us a relatively untold story (of course lightly based on a true story) and stacked cast, it also fails by not using that story to stand out because of uninspired writing and direction.

Bryan Cranston takes the lead as a real-life US Customs Agent, Robert Mazur, stuck in the twilight of his career before getting one final call for the 'big one' to finally ship him into retirement. Cranston channels his best Heizenburg impersonation as he slowly slips into the good graces of his new criminal friends. I don't have a knock on his performance, but due to the writing, some of his scenes felt humorous (like a scene in a restaurant with his wife) or confusing (his meeting with the bankers) instead of menacing or straightforward...at least enough to understand who all the players in the room were.

Our supporting cast does just fine with the material. Diane Kruger is looking younger than ever while John Leguizamo still knocks his character-casting out of the park as the jumpy Latino partner. While Benjamin Bratt and Yul Vazquez are billed as the top "villains", neither comes off as threatening thanks to nearly zero background outside of a bit of dialogue. Even at a two-hour running time, this felt light on the material and shorter than it should have been.

For director Brad Furman, he's able to squeeze a bit of tension and suspense out from the story line in certain parts, but none of it ever really flows succinctly enough for the audience to streamline what's going on. Too many pauses in between notable events keep this movie from really reaching above average.

I was delighted to see a new story being told in the 80's about the drug war with Pablo Escobar, even if he is a fleeting character for a brief moment. While The Infiltrator focuses largely on the smaller tentacles of Escobar's reach into the US at the time, the events still come off as larger than life with the inclusion of historical facts. It won't go down with the upper echelon of drug war movies we've seen in the past, but it won't fall farther than the average thriller in its category either.