Bryan Cranston playing someone pretending to be a drug dealer. Hang on, does this qualify as meta?
The Partially Educated Review
So, I’ve still not seen Breaking Bad…
…and this is the first time where I’ve actually felt like perhaps I should have done now. Other than all the times people have told me that I should have seen it by now. Those many, many times.
So yes, this is a film where the casting team didn’t exactly apply their imagination. Cranston plays undercover customs agent (and real life person) Robert Mazur, who goes undercover in order to try and infiltrate the goings on of Pablo Escobar. He was also a real person.
Director Brad Furman was responsible for commencing the McConaissance with The Lincoln Lawyer, a film which came with little to no fanfare and then turned out to be a bit of a good thing. However, where that film was like winning a high-priced scratchcard, Furman’s follow up Runner, Runner was a bit like promptly dropping said scratchcard down a drain. As such, there was no guarantee of where The Infilitrator would land quality-wise.
It’s somewhere in the middle.
Storytelling wise, The Infiltrator is generic as it comes. There is nothing about the events or the way they’re told that will surprise you in the slightest. Maybe that’s because the source story doesn’t make room for that. I don’t know. Research?
Regardless though, it’s still a problem. It’s like when an old person tells you a story for the fourth time that day. You feel this overwhelming need to react with enthusiasm each time so as not to offend their feelings or suggest that the story itself isn’t any good, but there’s only so many times you can laugh at a description of a cat falling over. The Infiltrator doesn’t have imbalanced cats, but it does have snitches, drug barons and enough crises of conscience to outdo a UKIP lobbyist.
Throw in capable actors though and you can make that over-familiarity a little easier to sit through. It probably goes without saying that Cranston is a good lead, but he's not what makes this film. It’s the supporting cast. Diane Kruger is one of those actors who seems to only crop up sporadically, despite the fact that she has gotten progressively better as time has gone along. That trend continues here. Likewise, John Leguizamo is one of those “oh, it’s that guy from that thing” actors, but it feels like he’s actually trying to push himself here and the results are positive. However, good though they are, neither of those are the revelation. Step forward, Benjamin Bratt, former romantic lead in…
Bratt is not an actor who excites me (and not just because of that film). He exists in a non-offensive, but equally unmemorable manner. Until now. Bratt plays Roberto Alcaino, Mazur’s main route into Escobar. He does so with a charm and elegance of such brilliance that you may find yourself just as taken with him as the people that surround him, forgetting that this guy is one hell of a dangerous man. If Bratt’s going to enter a late(ish) period of his career where he’s busting out performances like this, you can colour me excited
It’s those performances that are enough to make this film worth watching. Maybe not a rush to the cinema, but certainly on home release or streaming. Or on your phone, if you’re a freak. I’m still waiting for Furman to match The Lincoln Lawyer, but at least he’s back on track here.
out of 10
