{"id":338,"date":"2016-07-17T22:29:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T02:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/?p=338"},"modified":"2016-07-17T22:29:26","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T02:29:26","slug":"the-infiltrator-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/2016\/07\/17\/the-infiltrator-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"The Infiltrator (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Infiltrator<\/a>\u00a0is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Robert\u00a0Mazur, who was a U.S Customs Agent in Tampa, Florida.<\/p>\n

After a drug bust, U.S. Customs is rethinking its tactics. They want the big fish – the\u00a0\u00a0Medell\u00edn Cartel, and more specifically, Pablo Escobar, because the cartel is smuggling\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine into the U.S. \u00a0They poke fun at Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, and realize they should focus on the financial side of the equation.<\/p>\n

Bob\u00a0Mazur (Brian Cranston) \u00a0usually works undercover, and on his own, but the boss, Bonni Tischler (Amy Ryan), says there’s too much at stake, so he can’t. She assigns Agent\u00a0Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo), and, as you’d expect, he’s the antithesis of\u00a0Robert. The two work combine their efforts\u00a0and set up Bob as a fake money launderer for the NYC mob, named Robert Musella, who specializes\u00a0in real estate.<\/p>\n

Emir works his contacts, and sets up a low level meeting with the local cartel people. Bob gets a prisoner released who can help with some of the more sordid details of the business he’s pretending to be in. After a bit of back and forth, they all start doing business together. The cartel people bring in a private British bank, who they have been using, and Bob ingratiates himself into their business, too.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of players involved, but Bob\u00a0is documenting as much as possible, recording conversations, and so on. After a particularly successful deal, Bob is presented with a hooker, and he refuses her, being that he is married. At the scene, though, he claims he’s engaged, and that forces Agent Tischler to introduce another agent into the mix to play the fiancee – Kathy Ertz (Dianne Kruger). Bob and his wife-to-be\u00a0are introduced to a high-ranking officer within the cartel – Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt), who, in turn, introduces Kathy to his wife Gloria, and they bond over the upcoming nuptials.<\/p>\n

The situation is very volatile. Cross the cartel, and suffer extreme consequences. At one point, Bob is flown somewhere, and is “vetted”, but it’s done in a fickle, yet scary fashion. There are quite a few twists and turns that have to be navigated properly or they will all suffer an extremely horrible fate.<\/p>\n

The amazing facet of this movie is that it’s based on real events. I do want to know more, and such information is readily available. I gather that there were some simplifications of the plot, perhaps for the sake of moviemaking, but they weren’t too blatant. Where they implied that the operation involved just a handful of people, there were more than a few agents working in the background to make this happen.<\/p>\n

The story gets a bit convoluted, but it holds together. The tension is palpable, and builds through to the end of the film. Brian Cranston proves, once again, that he’s\u00a0an incredible actor, as are the rest of the cast. John Leguizamo plays close to type, but there was an unpredictability to his character that shined through. Amy Ryan continues to impress me in these peripheral\u00a0roles she’s taken recently, and\u00a0Dianne Kruger\u00a0played her part well. There were several scenes in the film that weren’t truly\u00a0necessary for the movie, but necessary to help understand the characters. There were two scenes, in particular, that really helped you to understand the characters involved, and I was pleased\u00a0that they took the time to include them in the movie. It really elevated the film, for me.<\/p>\n

The movie itself isn’t the sort of film you expect to see in the Summer, because it’s a heavy film. I have to admit I had serious reservations about seeing it, since it was released now, but it surpassed what I was expecting. There is serious violence, the kind you’d expect to see in a movie about drug trafficking, but they don’t dwell on it.<\/p>\n

I do recommend this film, pretty strongly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Infiltrator\u00a0is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Robert\u00a0Mazur, who was a U.S Customs Agent in Tampa, Florida. After a drug bust, U.S. Customs is rethinking its tactics. They want the big fish – the\u00a0\u00a0Medell\u00edn Cartel, and more specifically, Pablo Escobar, because the cartel is smuggling\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth … Continue reading The Infiltrator (2016)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Fv6s-5s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackthud.net\/AisleSeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}