The Infiltrator

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Infiltrator)

There are roles that so consume an actor, that it is almost impossible to watch anything else they do without seeing the more defining character.  Examples include Anthony Hopkins (always Hannibal Lecter), Daniel Radcliffe (always Harry Potter, but is trying his damnedest to shake him), Tom Cruise (always Tom Cruise).  So too with Bryan Cranston – who is now so synonymous with Breaking Bad’s Walter White that it seems a little hypocritical when he turns up in The Infiltrator, as US undercover customs agent Robert Mazur, determined to take down the world’s largest drug cartel.  Really, Heisenberg?  Really?

Drugs are bad.  Or good.  Can't remember.

It’s an interesting enough premise for the based-on-a-true-story film.  Mazur has made a career out of infiltrating various criminal gangs, and taking them down, while surrounded by confidential informants (Joe Gilgun, John Leguizamo) who give him legitimacy in the underworld.  And as his last great hurrah, he decides to follow the money (rather than the drugs) and take down the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, who were instrumental in helping fund Pablo Escobar’s drug empire.  Along the way he is assigned a fiancé (Diane Kruger) to give his story of being a money laundering businessman further legitimacy.  Adventures ensue.

It’s a perfectly good film, with strong performances from all involved (including Benjamin Bratt as one of Escobar’s main agents).  But the script is a bit clunky, it lacks tension, and there’s a better story to be told.  In fact, it seems that there’s possibly a couple of different ways to make this a much better story.  For example:

1. Ratchet up the tension that there must have been in the real-life version (this should have been hugely exciting.  It’s not.)  Mazur doesn’t appear to ever be doubted. “Oh you’re a random stranger offering to launder all my illegitimate cash?  Sure, have it.  Cheers, helpful stranger.”
2. Explore the ramifications of the undercover life on an agent and his family (Mazur has real life wife and children, but is assigned an undercover fiancé.  There are obvious tensions, which is an interesting but abandoned storyline).
3. Consider the longer term implications of the undercover lifestyle – Mazur’s undercover fiancé becomes friends with the wives and girlfriends of the cartel, and struggles with the knowledge that soon her new friends will all be in prison because of her.  Another interesting but abandoned storyline.        
4. Look at the relationship between Mazur and his informants – he doesn’t particularly like them, and it’s unclear how they feel about him, but they both rely on each other.  Surely that’s worth having a look at?

The film ends with those information shots that tell you about what happened to all the people involved.  And they’re really interesting.  So much so, that it’s disappointing that the film hasn’t done more to make those conclusions feel like a worthy payoff.

Attempts to break good go bad.

David Brent: Life On The Road

The Office is one of the few programmes that I can’t binge watch for fear of putting my fist through the television screen.  But I saw Alpha Papa (I have similar “cringe” issues with Alan Partridge) and enjoyed it.  Giddy with the success of leaving the cinema screen intact, I went to see David Brent: Life on the Road.

Watched more than one episode of The Office - things went badly for the TV.

Television struggles to make the transition to film – partially because a film has to appeal to fans of the show, while not alienating the people who have never seen it.  What we end up watching is often a feature length episode, wacky hijinks, oodles of cameos (in the vague hope that the audience will be so distracted that we won’t notice there’s no plot).  There also seems to be a more notable divide between critical acclaim and audience response – The Inbetweeners Movie (20121) for example, only has a 54% aggregate rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it set a new record for the most successful opening weekend ever achieved by a comedy film in the UK after grossing £2.5million in its opening day and won a BAFTA for Special Achievement.

More often than not, the television/film crossover takes the main character and plonks them abroad – a fish out of water story without the security blanket of familiar surroundings (The Inbetweeners Movie, Kevin and Perry Go Large (2000), and Absolutely Fabulous (2016).  Not so in the David Brent film.  Its closest comparison is Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013).  A 40-something who has dreams of being famous and believes that the only thing thwarting him is the stupidity of those around him, lacking the self-awareness to understand that the world neither wants nor needs his particular brand of ego.

 

Hello ladies...

The conceit has the potential to be interesting – a film crew are making a follow up to their original documentary and want to catch up with David Brent (Ricky Gervais).  He is no more successful than he was 15 years ago.  Life has been unkind and following a breakdown, admission into “a facility” and ongoing therapy, he’s now a sales rep in (worst of all) an office full of Fincheys.  The women mainly find him repulsive, the men mainly make him the butt of their jokes.  We have no sense of his home life.  There’s no mention of any of the other characters from The Office.  His new plan is to take his band – Foregone Conclusion Part 2 – on tour in an attempt to summon fortune and fame.  

It’s as agonising as usual.  The tour amounts to nothing more than 6 or 7 gigs all within easy driving distance of home, but Brent insists on the full rock and roll lifestyle (all entirely funded by him) including luxury tour buses and hotel rooms.  The band cannot bear to spend any time with him, the gigs are poorly attended.  Brent constantly pushes himself forward to sing unbearable (but well intentioned) songs about Native Americans, disabled people, and terminally ill orphans.

The main issues, however, are these:

·         Stakes: there are none.  We know that David Brent has spent upwards of £20k on this tour and has cashed in a number of private pensions in order to afford this lavish lifestyle.  But nothing rides on this – if this doesn’t work out, he’ll try again later.  Everything’s fine.  So it’s difficult to care too much about whether this plan succeeds or fails.

·         Self awareness: there is none.  The Brent from The Office at least shows moments of self awareness – and these are the moments  that the audience hold on to, to wish better for him (if only so that this will be a little easier to watch and we can stop digging our fingernails into our face).  The Brent from the film just carries on blithely, unaware that when he is being given verbal reprimands by his manager for telling sexist and racist jokes that this is a warning to rein it in.  Unaware that if you have to pay people to come and have a drink with you, they’re not your mates.  Unaware that it’s really not appropriate to ask the only non-white person you know to refer to you as “my nigger”.

·         Salvation: it’s a stretch, really (as are my attempts for alliteration).  After all those cutaways of the band saying that they can’t abide him, after all the interviews with his colleagues saying that they know he’s going to fail, the film ends where they all like him.  It feels like a step gets cut out.  Brent doesn’t change, but everyone starts to like him for no reason.

That said:

David Brent is a horrific comedy character, and my hands bear the marks of where I tried to gnaw off my own fists while watching this film.  However I don’t want bad things to happen him.  I don’t want him to succeed (it would be no good if he achieved all is dreams of fame and fortune), but likewise I don’t want him to lose, stuck forever being crushed by the Fincheys of this world.  And that must be testament to the writing of the character. 

Conclusions:

There’s a better film in here somewhere, and it would only take minor (though significant) tweaks.   I wonder if it misses the influence of Stephen Merchant (notably absent from the writing credits).  And Brent – love him or loath him – always provokes a reaction, which is a kind of a win.  There were a lot of horrified laughs from the audience when I was at the cinema which is still a positive response in itself.  But, like David Brent, the film isn’t a winner.  But neither is it an out and out loser.  It has its redeeming features.  You just have to really look for them.