On Blu-ray/DVD: LONDON FIELDS (2018), THE LAST MAN (2019) and TYREL (2018)

LONDON FIELDS
(US/UK - 2018)

Based on the acclaimed 1989 novel by Martin Amis, LONDON FIELDS' arduous journey to the screen has already taken its rightful place among cinema's most calamitous dumpster fires, while also confirming every suspicion that the book was unfilmable. David Cronenberg was originally attached to direct all the way back in 2001 before things fell apart in pre-production, with Michael Winterbottom (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE) and David Mackenzie (HELL OR HIGH WATER) also in the mix over the next several years. It wasn't until 2013 that filming actually commenced, with music video vet Mathew Cullen at the helm, making his feature directing debut, from a script initially written by Amis (his first screenplay since 1980's SATURN 3) and reworked by Roberta Hanley (VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE). After a private press screening at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival, where the film was acquired by Lionsgate, the planned public festival screening was abruptly canceled due to various lawsuits being filed amidst a very public spat between Cullen and the producers. These included: several of the producers suing Cullen after he missed two deadlines for turning in the finished film and they found out he was off shooting a Katy Perry video instead of completing post-production; Cullen countersuing when producers took the film away from him and recut it themselves; the producers suing star Amber Heard for breach of contract after she refused to record some required voiceovers after production wrapped and badmouthed the film to the media; and Heard countersuing, claiming the producers violated her no-nudity clause by hiring a double to shoot explicit sex scenes involving her character after she left. Deciding they wanted no part of the rapidly escalating shitshow, Lionsgate dropped the film, which remained shelved until the fall of 2018 when settlements were reached with all parties and a compromised version--assembled by some of the producers and disowned by Cullen--was picked up by, of all distributors, GVN Releasing, a small company specializing in faith-based, evangelical, and conservative-leaning fare, which the very R-rated LONDON FIELDS is decidedly not.

A movie about the making of LONDON FIELDS would be more interesting than watching LONDON FIELDS, an incoherent mess that looks like it was desperately cobbled together using any available footage, with little sense of pacing or narrative flow. Seeking any spark of inspiration, blocked American writer Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton) answers an ad to swap apartments with famed British crime novelist Mark Asprey (Jason Isaacs). While Asprey writes his latest bestseller in Young's shithole Hell's Kitchen hovel, Young works in Asprey's posh London pad and finds his muse in upstairs neighbor Nicola Six (Heard). A beguiling and clairvoyant femme fatale, Nicola wanders into the neighborhood pub wearing a black veil and mourning her own death, having a premonition of her inevitable murder--on her 30th birthday on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day--at the hands of one of the three men she encounters: the dour and jaded Young; upwardly mobile investment broker Guy Clinch (Theo James, at the beginning of the apparently perpetual attempt to make Theo James happen); and skeezy, lowlife, would-be darts champ and Guy Ritchie caricature Keith Talent (Jim Sturgess), who owes a ton of money to scar-faced, bowler-hatted Cockney gangster and chief darts rival Chick Purchase (an uncredited Johnny Depp, long before his and Heard's very acrimonious split, which should give you an idea of how old this thing is). Observing near and from afar how Nicola manipulates the men in her life, the dying Young weaves a complex tale that becomes the great novel he's always had in him. It seems like there's some kind of twist near the end, but it's hard telling with what's here.

Cullen put together his own director's cut that got into a few theaters for some select special engagements. It runs 11 minutes longer and with many scenes in different order (for instance, Depp appears seven minutes into this version but not until 35 minutes into Cullen's cut), but the only version currently on home video is the shorter "producer's cut" that GVN released on 600 screens to the tune of just $433,000. It's doubtful, but there's perhaps a good--or at least better--film buried somewhere in the rubble, and there's some enjoyment to be had from the scenery-chewing contest going on between Depp and Sturgess, who gets a ridiculous scene where he's dancing in a torrential downpour to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing." It's an amusingly silly sequence but therein lies the conundrum of LONDON FIELDS: it hasn't the slightest idea what it's doing or what it wants to be. Is it a romantic murder mystery? A drama about manipulation and obsession? A grotesque black comedy? The climactic tournament showdown with Keith and Chick gets perilously close to turning into a darts version of KINGPIN, with both Sturgess and Depp fighting over who gets to be Bill Murray's Big Ernie McCracken. It's easy to see why there were so many conflicting intentions on LONDON FIELDS: there's a ludicrous 12 production companies, 46 credited producers, four credited editors, and even three guys credited with doubling Thornton. Heard seems game to play a seductive and dangerous femme fatale in a twisty noir thriller, but LONDON FIELDS is not that movie. Or any kind of movie, for that matter. (R, 107 mins)



THE LAST MAN
(Argentina/Canada - 2019)

The first narrative feature from Argentine documentary filmmaker Rodrigo H. Vila is a resounding failure on almost every front, save for some occasionally atmospheric location work in what appear to be some dangerous parts of Buenos Aires. A dreary, dipshit dystopian hodgepodge of THE MACHINIST, JACOB'S LADDER, and BLADE RUNNER, the long-shelved THE LAST MAN (shot in 2016 as NUMB, AT THE EDGE OF THE END, with a trailer under that title appearing online two years ago) is set in a constantly dark, rainy, and vaguely post-apocalyptic near-future in ruins from environmental disasters and global economic fallout. Combat vet Kurt Matheson (Hayden Christensen) is haunted by PTSD-related nightmares and hallucinations, usually in the form of a little boy who seems to know an awful lot about him, plus his dead war buddy Johnny (Justin Kelly) who may have been accidentally killed by Kurt in a friendly fire incident. Kurt also falls under the spell of messianic street preacher Noe (Harvey Keitel, looking like Vila caught him indulging in some C. Everett Koop cosplay), who tells his flock that "We are the cancer!" and that they must be prepared for a coming electrical storm that will bring about the end of civilization (or, on the bright side, the end of this movie). Kurt gets a job at a shady security firm in order to pay for the fortified bunker he becomes obsessed with building, and is framed for internal theft and targeted by his boss Antonio (LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE's Marco Leonardi as Almost Benicio Del Toro), while at the same time having a clandestine fling with the boss' ex-model daughter (Liz Solari).

Oppressively dull, THE LAST MAN is an incoherent jumble of dystopia and apocalypse cliches, dragged down by Christensen, who still can't act (2003's terrific SHATTERED GLASS remains the only film where his limitations have worked in his favor), and is saddled with trite, sub-Rick Deckard narration on top of that (at one point, he's actually required to gravely mumble "If you look into darkness, the darkness looks into you"). Vila's idea of humor is to drop classic rock references into the dialogue, with Kurt admonishing "Johnny! Be good!" to the dead friend only he can see, and apparent Pink Floyd fan Johnny retorting with "Shine on, you crazy diamond!" and "You're trading your heroes for ghosts!" And just because a seriously slumming Keitel is in the cast, Vila throws in a RESERVOIR DOGS standoff near the end between Kurt, Antonio, and Antonio's duplicitous right-hand man Gomez (Rafael Spregelburd). The gloomy and foreboding atmosphere Vila achieves with the Buenos Aires cityscapes is really the only point of interest here and is a strong indicator that he should stick to documentaries, because THE LAST MAN is otherwise unwatchable. (R, 104 mins)



TYREL
(US - 2018)

It's hard to not think of GET OUT while watching TYREL, and that's even before Caleb Landry Jones appears, once again cast radically against type as "Caleb Landry Jones." The latest from provocative Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva (NASTY BABY), TYREL is a slow-burning cringe comedy that takes a sometimes frustratingly ambiguous look at casual racism in today's society. With his girlfriend's family taking over their apartment for the weekend, Tyler (Jason Mitchell, best known from MUDBOUND and as Eazy-E in STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON), who runs the kitchen in an upscale BBQ restaurant, accompanies his friend Johnny (Christopher Abbott) to a remote cabin for a reunion of Johnny's buddies, who are gathering to celebrate Pete's (Jones) birthday. The cabin is owned by Nico (Nicolas Arze), and it's an eclectic mix of rowdy dudebros that even includes openly gay Roddy (Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum). Tyler is already somewhat nervous as the outsider of the group and he's the only black man present, and things get off to a slightly awkward start when one of them thinks his name is "Tyrel," and Pete seemingly takes offense that Tyler doesn't remember meeting him on a prior occasion. The first night is mostly ballbusting (including casually throwing around the word "faggot" as a playful insult) and their usual drinking games that an uncomfortable Tyler doesn't feel like playing. He ducks out and pretends to go to sleep, which only earns Johnny's derision the next morning, so to put himself at ease, Tyler starts overdoing it, getting far too intoxicated over the course of the day, especially once a second group of guys, including rich, eccentric Alan (Michael Cera), show up.

Almost every comment is loaded with a potential misread, from questioning chef Tyler whether grits should be eaten with sugar or salt to someone asking "Is this a Rachel Dolezal thing...am I allowed to do this?" All of these guys are liberal and affluent to some degree, and TYREL speaks to how words and actions can be interpreted even if the intent isn't there, making the point that assumptions and belief systems are ingrained into one's psyche. No one says or does anything that's intended to be overtly offensive (Roddy brushes off the homophobic slur directed at another, because it's just guys being guys) or blatantly racist, but Tyler has been on the receiving end of it enough that his guard is always up. He frequently exacerbates the situation by overreacting in an irrational way, especially on the second day when he gets far more intoxicated than anyone else, even drunkenly helping himself to an expensive bottle of whiskey that was a gift for Pete, as Silva starts using subtly disorienting camera angles to convey Tyler's--and the audience's--increasing discomfort. TYREL is mainly about creating a mood of one unintentional microaggression after another, but Silva somewhat overstates the point by setting the getaway bash on the same weekend as President Trump's inauguration, a ham-fisted move that puts a challenging character piece squarely into "MESSAGE!" territory, especially when Alan breaks out a Trump pinata and smirks to Tyler, "Oh, you'll love this!" TYREL moves past that heavy-handed stumble, and ultimately, there's no big message to be had here, but while it seems slight on a first glance, much it will nevertheless stick with you. It's anchored by a perceptive performance by Mitchell, supported by an ensemble that's strong across the board, with a nice late-film turn by the late, great character actor Reg E. Cathey--in his last film before his February 2018 death from lung cancer--as one of Nico's neighbors. (Unrated, 87 mins)

In Theaters: THE DEATH OF STALIN (2018)

THE DEATH OF STALIN
(France/UK/Belgium - 2018)

Directed by Armando Iannucci. Written by Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin and Peter Fellows. Cast: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend, Paddy Considine, Adrian McLoughlin, Dermot Crowley, Paul Whitehouse, Paul Chahidi, Richard Brake, Diana Quick, Karl Johnson, Tom Brooke, Gerald Lepkowski. (R, 107 mins)

Best known in America for creating the HBO series VEEP, Armando Iannucci has been one of the most respected names in British comedy for over 20 years. He co-created Steve Coogan's signature "Alan Partridge" character, seen in several British TV series and the 2013 film ALAN PARTRIDGE, and was the brains behind the scathing BBC political satire THE THICK OF IT. That was spun off into the hilarious 2009 film IN THE LOOP, both of which centered on the stunningly profane central performance of Peter Capaldi and more or less set the style and tone for VEEP. Iannucci stepped down as VEEP's showrunner after its fourth season, and he's back with his second feature film, THE DEATH OF STALIN, based on a 2017 French graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin. The trademark Iannucci tone and endless, gloriously foul dialogue are here in all their glory, but THE DEATH OF STALIN is much darker than what we've seen from Iannucci in the past, largely because it depicts a series of actual events but runs them through its maker's uniquely skewed perspective and pitch-black comedy filter. This isn't just comedy of discomfort--it's comedy of unease. In less capable hands, it could've been an uneven and potentially tone-deaf disaster--after DR. STRANGELOVE, you can probably count on one hand the number of dark political comedies that are simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Perhaps it takes a cynical master of bullshit-calling like Iannucci to properly convey the unattainable heights of narcissistic sociopathy mixed the ego-driven, thorough incompetence displayed by the powers that be, with the resulting film being a vicious beatdown of dictatorial regimes embodying the adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely (the film was banned in Russia earlier this year after the Culture Ministry deemed it offensive), and though the film is set in the Soviet Union over 60 years ago, analogies can be drawn much closer to home in the here and now.

That's not to say it's all gloom and doom. THE DEATH OF STALIN has the expected uproarious quips and sarcastic one-liners that have become synonymous with Iannucci. In the Soviet Union in 1953, Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) is at the height of his dictatorial reign. He regularly draws up death lists, has people hauled off to gulags, routinely orders executions for minor infractions, and even those in his inner circle are constantly walking on eggshells so as not to have any comment be misconstrued in a way that will make this day their last as they live and die at the whims of a mercurial madman. When he dies suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage, the underlings and sycophants in his immediate orbit begin a war-like campaign of endless backstabbing, double-crossing, and shit-talking power plays as they jockey to assume power. Nothing is off limits and it doesn't matter how often they change policies or contradict themselves and everything for which the Union stands. In the hours and days following Stalin's death, his deputy secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) is the next in line of succession and assumes temporary control, but other players are already plotting their next moves, namely the ruthless head of the NVPD secret police and security chief Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale) and wily, pragmatic Central Committee politico Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi). Malenkov immediately proves ineffective and indecisive, prone to easy manipulation by Beria and Khrushchev, with other Committee members Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), Anastas Mikoyan (Paul Whitehouse), Nikolai Bulganin (Paul Chahidi), and Lazar Kaganovich (Dermot Crowley) caught in the middle waiting to see how things pan out. Others figuring into the chaotic proceedings include Stalin's daughter Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough), son Vasily (Rupert Friend), and highly decorated war hero Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), who helps Khrushchev lead the final coup to muscle out Malenkov and silence Beria for good.

The power struggle unfolds like a buffoonish chess game, with one of the unexpected highlights being the intentional decision to have the actors not attempt Russian accents and instead just talk like they talk. Hence, Buscemi is a wiseass Khrushchev who sounds like he's from one of the Five Boroughs, Tambor is an insecure Malenkov who talks like George Bluth, and Isaacs (channeling Capaldi's THICK OF IT persona) plays Zhukov like a Cockney thug in a Guy Ritchie movie. Once the political gamesmanship is underway, the insults and the ballbusting fly fast and furious, and Iannucci doesn't hesitate to play it blue, like Khrushchev dismissively responding to whiny Vasily pleading "I want to speak at my father's funeral" with a curt "And I wanna fuck Grace Kelly." There's also some more subtle jokes, particularly with some standout comedic timing by the great Palin, who's a joy as Molotov, getting long-winded and speechy during a vote that must be unanimous, and everyone around the table keeps raising and lowering their hands because they aren't sure what to do and need to keep up appearances.  It's no spoiler to anyone who knows their history that Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious in the plot to permanently succeed Stalin. That is, until he himself was ousted nine years later, having not learned what Iannucci shows in the closing scene at a concert being given by renowned and politically outspoken Russian pianist Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko), where new Soviet leader Khrushchev is oblivious to ambitious Leonid Brezhnev (Gerald Lepkowski) sitting diagonally behind him, looking over his shoulder, his wheels turning and another coup already being set in motion.

In Theaters: A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2017)

A CURE FOR WELLNESS
(US/Germany - 2017)

Directed by Gore Verbinski. Written by Justin Haythe. Cast: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Harry Groener, Celia Imrie, Ivo Nandi, Carl Lumbly, David Bishins, Lisa Banes, Adrian Schiller, Tomas Norstrom, Ashok Mandanna, Magnus Krepper, Johannes Krisch, Susanne Wuest, Rebecca Street, Craig Wroe. (R, 146 mins)

It's a safe bet there won't be a more ambitious, audacious, and flat-out weird major-studio horror movie to hit multiplexes this year than A CURE FOR WELLNESS. That title probably isn't going to do it any favors, but in an era where horror films are typified by Blumhouse jump scares, found-footage fatigue, and the unbridled sycophancy of horror hipster scenesters, A CURE FOR WELLNESS seems like it's borne of another time and place. A modern-day gothic throwback, it seems to have been made with little concern for mainstream appeal by Gore Verbinski, who established his genre bona fides with the 2002 RINGU remake THE RING but soon became synonymous with bloated, mega-budget summer fare like the first three PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films. Perhaps seeking a fresh start after the costly flop that was 2013's THE LONE RANGER, Verbinski was obviously allowed to make the film he wanted to make with A CURE FOR WELLNESS, even if 20th Century Fox was only willing to put up half of the $40 million budget, necessitating the involvement of German co-producers Studio Babelsberg. Headlined by recognizable actors but no expensive big names, it's a film so exquisitely crafted and meticulously detailed that it looks like it could've easily cost $200 million. Working from a script by REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and LONE RANGER screenwriter Justin Haythe, Verbinski wears his love of high-class horror on his sleeve throughout: themes and imagery conjure memories of everything from Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING, the dreamlike scenarios of Andrei Tarkovsky, the claustrophobic anxiety of Roman Polanski classics like REPULSION, ROSEMARY'S BABY (especially that lullaby-like theme), and THE TENANT, and the gothic Italian chillers of the 1960s by genre legends like Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti, with the climax especially feeling like a gushing love letter to a certain early 1970s Bava film. Verbinski's playing the long game with A CURE FOR WELLNESS, a film likely to alienate casual moviegoers but one that's intended more for the more hardcore horror devotee to appreciate and dissect for many years to come.

At a major NYC financial investment firm, young hotshot broker Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is given a promotion and a corner office after his predecessor in the job drops dead of a heart attack. It's not long before he's called into the office by acting boss Green (David Bishins): a merger is imminent and Lockhart's been cooking the books. He's threatened with prison ("Have you ever had a 12-inch black dick up your ass?" one of the other honchos spits at him) unless he can retrieve the real boss, Roland Pembroke (Harry Groener). Pembroke's been MIA since having a breakdown and checking into the Volmer Institute, a luxurious "wellness spa" housed in a castle in the remote mountains of the Swiss Alps. Green instructs Lockhart to travel to Switzerland and bring Pembroke back to NYC so he can sign off on the merger and pin all the malfeasance--Lockhart's and their own--on him. Once at the spa, Lockhart is stone-walled and given the run-around by everyone, including the spa's head doctor Heinrich Volmer (Jason Isaacs). Volmer insists Pembroke is not well enough to leave and when Lockhart finally encounters his colleague, Pembroke agrees to get his things together but is quickly admitted to another section of the hospital, with Volmer explaining his "condition" has taken a turn for the worse. Lockhart ends up being admitted to the institute following a horrific car crash when Volmer's driver (Ivo Nandi) hits a deer while taking him to a hotel, and even from inside as a patient, he isn't given any access to Pembroke. While most of the patients are elderly, Lockhart is intrigued by the young and enigmatic Hannah (NYMPHOMANIAC's Mia Goth), a special patient whose parents died years earlier and who has been in Volmer's care since. Lockhart is subjected to bizarre treatments, including time spent in a sensory deprivation tank and an iron lung, and is haunted by recurring visions of large eels, with himself and all the patients constantly instructed to drink plenty of the purifying water and take regular eye-dropper oral doses of the liquid vitamin that Volmer insists is vital to their wellness.

You can count all the great two-and-half-hour horror movies on one hand, and while it's easy for an excitable and enthused genre fan to overrate something like A CURE FOR WELLNESS (some of the plot doesn't hold up under intense scrutiny, especially when it comes to Lockhart's bosses' slow response to his extended absence), it's also a near-certainty that you've never seen a genre mash-up quite like this one. Refreshingly, it's played completely straight and dead serious, never going for winking irony, cheap quips, or lazy references. Verbinski and Haythe set the ominous mood from the get-go, and it just gets more freakishly bizarre with each new plot turn as it crescendos into a symphony of absolute madness by the final act. Lockhart spends much of the film convinced Volmer and the staff are trying to drive him insane, but with the help of another patient, puzzle enthusiast Victoria (Celia Imrie), he discovers that the compound is a 200-year-old castle built over the partial ruins of another, the ancestral home of the demented Baron von Reichmerl, a 19th century nobleman killed by the villagers over his obsession with creating a pure and incestuous bloodline with his sister. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is set in the present day but seems to come from the 1970s. It's a triumph of chilling atmosphere, with ornate sets and carefully composed shots that give it a vivid feeling of cold, classic Kubrick. The three leads are fantastic, from the waif-like Goth conveying the naive innocence of Hannah to the historically annoying DeHaan, who's matured as an actor since the overrated CHRONICLE, which established him as a sort of excruciatingly whiny Emo DiCaprio. Isaacs has a blast in a vintage mad doctor role, relishing the sinister machinations of Volmer (what a classic-sounding mad doctor name) but never going overboard into hammy scenery-chewing. Indeed, in his controlled performance and the way Volmer plays his cards close to the vest, Isaacs is very reminiscent of a mid-career Christopher Plummer (I wouldn't be surprised if a studio suit at some point in the planning stages suggested Verbinski get Johnny Depp to play Volmer). A CURE FOR WELLNESS isn't for everyone, and if it's not your thing, then its 146 minutes will be an endurance test. But for the schooled and well-traveled horror scholar, it's probably the giddiest time you'll have with a genre offering this year. I don't care if this tanks in theaters--the fact that it even exists and I could see it in a theater in the year 2017 is a small miracle worth celebrating.

In Theaters: THE INFILTRATOR (2016)

THE INFILTRATOR
(US/UK - 2016)

Directed by Brad Furman. Written by Ellen Brown Furman. Cast: Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, Amy Ryan, Yul Vazquez, Juliet Aubrey, Joseph Gilgun, Elena Anaya, Jason Isaacs, Said Taghmaoui, Art Malik, Olympia Dukakis, Simon Andreu, Michael Pare, Ruben Ochandiano, Carsten Hayes, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Ashley Bannerman, Juan Cely, Andy Beckwith, Xarah Xavier, Daniel Mays. (R, 127 mins)

Based on the memoir by US Customs special agent Robert Mazur, THE INFILTRATOR chronicles the mid '80s takedown of an extensive, global money laundering operation with ties to Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel, and somehow manages to do it without featuring Benicio Del Toro in any capacity (though it does co-star reliable second-string Del Toro Benjamin Bratt). It's 1985 and Mazur, played here by Bryan Cranston, realizes the agency isn't getting anywhere with simple drug busts, and instead hatches a plan to follow the money. A veteran of intense undercover work, the Tampa-based Mazur is reluctantly teamed with hot-dogging, hair-trigger agent Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo, cast radically against type as "John Leguizamo"), with Mazur posing as a mob-connected New Jersey businessman named Bob Musella. As Musella, Mazur works his way into Tampa drug circles and finds an in with low-level Medellin flunkies Gonzalo Mora Sr (Eurocult vet Simon Andreu sighting!) and his hard-partying cokehead son Gonzalo Jr (Ruben Ochandiano). This leads him a little further up the ladder to the flamboyant, bisexual Javier Ospina (Yul Vazquez), who's always accompanied by a silent mystery woman straight out of SALON KITTY (Xarah Xavier), and makes an awkward pass at Mazur/Musella by fondling him when they're alone. Musella sets up money laundering operations using reputable banks all over the world, most of which are well aware of what they're doing but are OK with it as long as the cash keeps flowing. Mazur/Musella becomes a big enough player that he--along with rookie agent Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger), pressed into service when the married Mazur impulsively invents a fiancee to avoid cheating on his wife with a stripper supplied to him by Gonzalo Jr--becomes a trusted associate of Roberto Alcaino (Bratt), a key figure in Escobar's inner circle.

Directed by Brad Furman (THE LINCOLN LAWYER) and scripted by his mother Ellen Brown Furman, THE INFILTRATOR has little new to offer to the "deep undercover" subgenre. There's the inevitable scenes of Mazur/Musella almost being exposed, whether someone catches a glimpse of the recording device planted in his briefcase or, in a scene that's pretty much mandatory in this kind of movie, the wire he's wearing malfunctions and starts burning through his skin. Mazur's marriage goes through the usual melodramatic checklist that culminates in his extremely patient wife Ev (Juliet Aubrey) giving him the "I don't even know who you are anymore" glare that's crosscut with a kicked-out Mazur lying in bed in a dingy motel room, thousand-yard-staring across the room, flicking the bedside lamp on and off FATAL ATTRACTION-style, pondering What I've Become. That happens about an hour and a half in, and honestly, THE INFILTRATOR almost lost me at that moment. I mean, seriously. Give us a fucking break, Furmans.

In spite of its stumbles, THE INFILTRATOR is a moderately diverting time-killer that gets a lot of mileage out of a miscast Cranston who, at 60, is probably at least 15 years too old for this role. Cranston is such a dynamic actor that he can sell virtually anything (the barely-released COLD COMES THE NIGHT is the only bad Cranston performance I've seen). He's given able support by Leguizamo, who can play this kind of role in his sleep, and Bratt, who's really perfected the Corinthian leather purr of the great Ricardo Montalban. Other recognizable character actors appear throughout the story, like Amy Ryan as Mazur's bitch-on-wheels boss; Jason Isaacs as a hapless government lawyer; Olympia Dukakis as Mazur's aunt, improbably and recklessly included in one of his undercover jobs; Michael Pare as doomed smuggler and informant Barry Seal; Said Taghmaoui and Art Malik as a pair of corrupt Panamanian banking execs; and Joseph Gilgun in what's probably a composite character, a violent felon and past Mazur informant sprung from the joint to function as Musella's bodyguard and all-knowing expert on the ways of the underworld. The film plays far too fast and loose with the facts (Seals' death in the film is not how it went down, and the final sting operation at a wedding is complete fiction) and gets by on its performances and  some set pieces that Furman would have to be a moron to screw up (one certain future YouTube highlight is Gonzalo Sr. happening upon an off-the-clock Mazur and his wife at their anniversary dinner). Furman lays on the Scorsese worship pretty thick at times--he really loves the "Steadicam following Cranston" bit--but he has some cool choices in classic rock, from an undercover Mazur's beginning-of-the-film intro striding into a bowling alley accompanied by Rush's "Tom Sawyer" to a long, ambitious, CHILDREN OF MEN-type tracking shot where the camera snakes around to introduce all the major players at the climactic wedding--a staged event to lure all the targets to Musella and Kathy's fake nuptials--set to The Who's "Eminence Front." One detriment to THE INFILTRATOR is that it's one of the cheapest-looking $47 million productions you'll ever see, with its saturated, fake-grainy look and some unconvincing greenscreen sticking out like a sore thumb, a good indicator that the money went to the cast and the song licensing. I generally liked THE INFILTRATOR--it's got Cranston, some genuine suspense, and it's never boring, but it's crying out for something more than the workmanlike Brad Furman is able to deliver. Maybe it's the presence of Leguizamo bringing back some fond memories of CARLITO'S WAY, but on several occasions, I kept thinking of how this could've turned out in the hands of an in-his-prime Brian De Palma.