(SPOILER WARNING!!! This article does contain spoilers, if you haven’t seen the movie, just see the first paragraph to be informed without spoilers!!!)

The Infiltrator has moments where it becomes tense and puts you on the edge of your seats, though there may be some slow points, but the pacing and acting will keep you engaged throughout this good movie!!!

Rating: 4 Stars

I can talk about Bryan Cranston. (Yay!!!) My first encounter with this very talented actor was the show Malcolm in the Middle. He was hilarious in that show. Since then, I always thought of him as a comedic actor. It took me a while to take him seriously as a dramatic actor. Then the show Breaking Bad came through. There I realized he does have the acting chops to be great. That show really showed how much range he has in his acting belt. How he can change from a family man to a drug dealing gangster in a manner of seconds was just pure genius. When he turns to his Heisenberg mode, it does give me chills. After the show, he got into more dramatic movie roles. He was the best dramatic actor in the latest installment of Godzilla, and he was great in Argo as well. I know he will get an Oscar soon, he already has a nomination under his belt, and can utilize his array of talents in future film roles. When I saw the trailer for The Infiltrator, where you have Cranston in a movie about going undercover to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s drug business, I was immediately engaged. I knew that just Cranston alone will make this movie decent at least, and turns out, I was right.

What I Like: Bryan Cranston played the role of US Customs Special Agent Robert Mazur. It is a true story of Mazur going undercover to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s drug money laundering in the US. He goes undercover as a banker named Bob Musella. There he goes deep into that part of the criminal world where he meets Escobar’s top people in the money laundering business. The movie has a great cast of John Leguizamo as Emir Abreu, his partner in the infiltration and provided the comic relief of the movie, Diane Kruger as Kathy Ertz, his undercover fiance, and Benjamin Bratt (who always plays a Latino villain as of late) as Roberto Alcaino, the leader of Escobar’s money laundering in the US. Director Brad Furman used the cast very well to make some of the most tense scenes this year. Some of the scenes really got you on the edge of your seats where you trying to figure out what is going to happen. Like when Mazur took his wife, Evelyn Mazur played by Juliet Aubrey, out for their anniversary and actually meet up with Escobar’s gang at the restaurant. Where Mazur really had to play his role of Musella immediately had to play his undercover role with his real wife present. This lead to a hostile exchange with the waiter who brought out a cake that almost exposed his cover, but Mazer played it off slick but intensely. Also the part where before meeting Alcaino, he had to go through a spiritual voodoo to see if he can be trusted where the person before hi was shot dead because the supposed voodoo spirits didn’t give good vibes. However, Mazur gave off the good vibes for him to be trusted. All these scenes sets up to the biggest scene where they make a fake wedding for Musella and his fiancé which had all of Escobar’s top men in the money laundering business attending, and ends up to be a trap to arrest the guys. The way the movie ended was pure genius.

The So So: The movie can be cliched as a typical undercover cop story where the cop goes in too deep. However, the direction of Furman really gave the story a well paced freshness to keep you engaged. There was this very tense scene where Mazur was caught by one of the men, Javier Ospina played by Yul Vazquez, audio taping the conversations with his briefcase. It had you thinking on how will Mazur handle it, but in the end, Escobar’s people ended up killing him. I just didn’t get the reasoning for them to kill a guy who worked for them for years. It seemed like an easy way to get out of a very sticky situation, and lost all the tenseness it brought.

What I Didn’t Like: There were times where this film was slow. Mainly because the dialogue of the business deals Mazur try to make can be pretty boring. If it didn’t have these intense scenes, the movie would’ve been mediocre at best. I guess it’s hard to learn the art of dialogue to kill time in the movie which Quinton Tarantino does so well.

Overall: This is a good undercover cop movie that will keep you on the edge of your seats throughout. It is a good true story, an shows how deep these undercover cops can go to reach their goal. It is a great watch, and you do see the best of Bryan Cranston in this role Breaking Bad style!!!

Rating: 4 Stars

(Sidenote: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies- This movie sounded so weird that I had to see it. Unfortunately it can be boring as the the original book they knock off from, Pride and Prejudice. For a zombie movie, it really lacked the action and gore that zombie movies should have. Let alone, that the story was confusing in which which guy wants to marry which girl. I lost interest halfway through the movie to even care what happens. Can I still hope for a Zombieland 2 in the near future?
Rating: 2 Stars)