The Infiltrator

While it has its share of gunplay and property damage, Brad Furman's fact-inspired The Infiltrator earns its chills not by pummeling the audience with violence but by gently reminding viewers that some businesses only offer permanent severance packages.

In 1986, customs agent Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston) wonders if simply seizing cocaine shipments and busting street-level deals is all that effective in curbing the trade. Having been trained as a forensic accountant, Mazur thinks a more productive way to slow down the illegal trade is to go after the cartels' pocketbooks and the bankers who manage them. By posing as an eager money launderer, he can go after the kingpins instead of the lowly dealers and the people who help them hide their ill-gotten fortunes.

Yet, if Mazur's strategy (called "Operation C-Chase") is promising, he might not be the right person to implement it. Mazur got wounded in a previous operation and is eligible for a generous retirement package. With a wife (Juliet Aubrey) and two kids, the financial gain from the operation would be paltry compared to the danger. In addition to dealing with "business partners" who kill competitors and underperforming employees, Mazur distrusts his flamboyant partner, Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo). And the snitches Abreu uses to access Colombia's Medellin Cartel aren't above shooting their benefactors.

Actually, Mazur has a lot to learn from his partner. The drug merchants take offense if you turn down the services of a hooker or like to stay sober during business deals. When Mazur errs on the side of discretion by keeping his fly closed in a strip club, he inadvertently has to bring in a fellow agent (Diane Kruger) to pose as his fiancee to explain his mysteriously prudish behavior.

Despite awkward moments like these, Mazur impresses a Medellin associate named Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt) and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, who, despite their size and prominence, seem eager to help Mazur hide gangster cash.

It's a testament to director Brad Furman's sense of tone, and his mother Ellen Brown Furman's script, that The Infiltrator is consistently tense despite its successful conclusion being obvious. Mazur is still with us and even wrote the book that inspired the film. While Brown Furman is a freshman screenwriter, it doesn't hurt that she's a lawyer and sets up exchanges that look reasonably authentic.

In addition, both Furmans, while celebrating Mazur and Abreu's obvious courage, dare to ask if there are issues that a successful project like "C-Chase" can only partially solve. After all, all of that narco cash keeps people in power, and drug busts do little to stop the demand for a potentially lethal addictive product. The involvement of convicted Mena, Ark., drug runner/government informant Barry Seal and his 1986 murder also play into the plot.

Thanks to a delicately shaded performance by Cranston, Mazur consistently wrestles with the fact that he will have to betray confidences to bring down the gangsters and white collar criminals he pursues. Cranston's ability to play just about every emotion possible made his work as meth kingpin Walter White unforgettable on the TV series Breaking Bad, and here he hints that Mazur constantly runs the risk of not only being killed by criminals but becoming one.

The real Robert Mazur pulled off the operation with a lot of help, and so does Cranston. Leguizamo's sometimes manic persona can be grating, but here he tempers it with a sense of wariness. It may be fun to be around all that cash and power, but safety is fleeting.

Bratt also shines as a cultured financier whose nice suits and eye for baubles (he used to be a jeweler) belie a quiet, but constant sense of menace. Simply in the way that he carries himself, Bratt implies his enemies don't last long.

The Furmans wisely stress the period detail in The Infiltrator. Mazur's achievements seem even more impressive after realizing the tape recorder he used to make his cases was approximately the size of a small tank.

MovieStyle on 07/15/2016