The real-life story of Robert Mazur and his time undercover with the cartels is adapted into film in The Infiltrator, but some creative liberties are taken with the material. Bryan Cranston leads The Infiltrator’s cast, playing Robert Mazur, who participates in the money laundering schemes of infamous criminals like Pablo Escobar, gathering information under the name Bob Musella. By helping criminals like Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt) launder their money, he earned enough trust and credibility with the cartels to help law enforcement take down the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, as well as making over 100 arrests.
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The Infiltrator is based on the memoir of Robert Mazur, which accounts his personal experiences working undercover. The adaptation is written by Elle Brown Furman and directed by Brad Furman. In the 1980s, Mazur was part of a law enforcement initiative called Operation C-Chase, which was created to infiltrate the criminal money laundering enterprise, which was responsible for moving hundreds of millions each year for cartels. This included other agents who were characters in the film, including Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo) and Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger).
9 Robert Mazur Didn’t Actually Have The Option Of Early Retirement
Mazur Never Suffered A Burn From A Wire, According To His Memoir
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The Infiltrator takes its creative liberties in establishing Robert Mazur’s personality and dedication to justice. The film establishes that, due to a burn on his chest from wearing a wire, he would be eligible for early retirement. Despite this, he chooses to carry on with his mission, nearly imploding his personal life and marital relationship in the process. Mazur’s book never mentions any sort of burn or option for early retirement.
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The decision to add this factor into the film was likely made to make his efforts with Operation C-Chase entirely conscious, suggesting that he was dedicated to the mission and would do so despite the risk of his family life suffering. Mazur explains in The Infiltrator memoir that his marital life really did suffer due to the sheer duration of time he spent away from home throughout the case and the continuous danger he was placed in.
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8 Robert Mazur Didn’t Shove A Waiter’s Face Into Cake
The Restaurant Scene Was Made To Show Evelyn Mazur Experiencing Her Husband’s Dual Life
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Aside from danger, The Infiltrator makes a distinct effort to show how Robert Mazur’s double life directly affected his family. In the film, there’s a scene where he and his wife, Evelyn (Juliet Aubrey), are at a restaurant celebrating their wedding anniversary when he sees someone he recognizes from his criminal life. Worried about his cover being blown, he puts on a show, yelling at the waiter and eventually smashing the poor man’s head into a cake.
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Again, there’s no account of this ever happening in Mazur’s memoir. The purpose of the scene’s existence in the film is to demonstrate the firsthand effect of his undercover life on his personal life. Mazur is forced to use his Musella character in front of Evelyn, which is rather alarming for her, contributing to the marital struggles he experiences throughout the film. Work-life blending with family life is quite common in crime thrillers that see characters going undercover, so it’s no surprise that The Infiltrator touches on this.
7 Robert Mazur Was Undercover For Two Years
The Infiltrator Skims Over Mazur’s Two Years Of Work
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Timelines are often something that can get foggy in film adaptations, and The Infiltrator doesn’t really stop to let the audience know how long everything is taking. It’s clear that a significant amount of time is passing, as Mazur’s marital life is suffering from his prolonged experience working on the case, and also because the relationships Mazur builds throughout the film take time to develop trust. He wins over the trust of several hardened criminals, a task that takes a deal of time and effort.
In real life, Robert Mazur was undercover for five total years, but only two of those years were spent undercover with Operation C-Chase. He spent the other three years working on various other cases and managed to retire from law enforcement unscathed. However, Mazur still conceals his identity from the internet at risk of threats from the cartel.
6 The Infiltrator’s “Audition” Scene Didn’t Actually Happen
No One Was Ever Executed Next To Robert Mazur
Benjamin Bratt in The Infiltrator
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One of the creepiest and most bizarre scenes in The Infiltrator sees Robert Mazur attending a strange ritual. He’s blindfolded and brought to a dark chamber filled with strange decorations, including bloody animal carcasses and a man next to him who’s executed in front of him. Despite clearly being shocked, Mazur doesn’t break at the sight of the violence, and he’s freed from the room after having smoke blown in his face.
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The scene in the book doesn’t describe any murder.
Afterward, Rudy Armbrecht (Carsten Hayes) tells him, “It was an audition; you got the part.” This scene serves as an initiation for Mazur, allowing him deeper access into the cartel. The book depicts a scene where Mazur enters a room decorated like a religious altar with candles and the remains of animal sacrifices, but the “audition” he undergoes is merely an assessment of his character. The scene in the book doesn’t describe any murder.
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5 Robert Mazur Never Received A Bloody Coffin As A Threat
Mini Coffins Were Sent By The Cartel, But They Contained Letters, Not Blood
Another highly dramatized scene in The Infiltrator sees Robert Mazur at home when his daughter enters the room with her hands covered in blood. At first, he assumes she’s cut herself, but he takes her to the sink and realizes it’s the contents of the package she’s carrying. He had received a small coffin in the mail, which was filled with blood dripping out of the packaging. The cartel doesn’t know his address, but it actually shows that he had it when he entered his home and accidentally left it for his daughter to find.
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Mazur’s book explains that mini coffins were sent as threats from members of Pablo Escobar’s cartel, but they would contain letters, not blood. The purpose of adding this scene to the movie was likely similar to the ritual execution scene, with it adding a sense of terror and ruthlessness to the criminals at hand. It’s not dissimilar from the famous horse head scene in The Godfather.
4 The Infiltrator’s Drive-By Murder Never Happened
Robert Mazur Wasn’t Present For Barry Seal’s Death
About halfway through The Infiltrator, Robert Mazur meets a rather abrasive man named Barry Seal at a dog race. He tries to win Seal over to his clientele, hoping to manage money for him, but Seal claims that he isn’t interested just yet. They get into a car together, and Seal goes off on a monologue about his frustrations with the current state of America before he’s rudely interrupted by cartel members on a motorcycle who shoot him, causing the car to crash with Mazur inside of it.
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Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal in the movie
American Made
(2017).
Since Barry Seal was a real person, the facts here can be broken down into two parts. First, there’s nothing to suggest that Robert Mazur was ever in a car crash or witnessed a drive-by shooting in such a manner. Second, Barry Seal was a drug smuggler turned informant for law enforcement who spent years working against the cartel. He was eventually found out and was gunned down, though it happened in the parking lot of a Salvation Army.
3 The Infiltrator’s Wedding Scene Never Happened (But It Was Planned)
The Arrests Were Made The Night Before The Wedding In Real Life
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The Infiltrator’s ending sees all the criminals attending the staged wedding between Robert Mazur and Kathy Ertz. Kathy was brought onto the mission in the film to bolster a lie he told at the strip club about having a girlfriend he hoped to marry. Eventually, he made good on that promise, and the wedding was used for Bonni Tischler (Amy Ryan) to make a series of arrests on cartel members directly connected to Pablo Escobar.
the men were told they’d be attending a bachelor party and were taken in limousines and delivered to federal agents who arrested them.
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In real life, however, the wedding never occurred. The wedding was planned with many high-up cartel members set to attend, but the actual ceremony never had to happen. The plan was to make arrests during a Sunday morning ceremony, but Mazur suggested that it wouldn’t be right to do so in front of the women and children who would be present. Instead, the men were told they’d be attending a bachelor party and were taken in limousines and delivered to federal agents who arrested them. The film’s version certainly heightens the betrayal aspect of Mazur’s experience.
2 Robert Mazur Was Never In The Same Room As Pablo Escobar
The Infiltrator Shows Mazur Seeing Pablo Escobar In A Brief Scene
Like many cartel movies, The Infiltrator exists in the shadow of Pablo Escobar’s influence. While the infamous criminal never has any speaking lines in the film, there’s a moment when Robert Mazur crosses paths with him. Pablo Escobar walks by him wearing sunglasses, and Mazur goes to tell Kathy about who he just saw, signifying how close they’re getting to making serious progress.
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In an interview with Men’s Journal, Robert Mazur claimed that he never actually entered a room with Escobar, due to the criminal being unable to leave Colombia. The addition of Pablo Escobar in the movie was likely to demonstrate just how much progress Mazur was making and how much trust he had obtained from the cartel, but it’s a fictional moment. There also seems to be a momentary suggestion that Mazur might be getting in too deep, but that boils over, and everything turns out alright. Read his full quote below:
“I was never in a room with Pablo Escobar. He was not able to leave Colombia at the time, because the biggest fear he had was extradition, and there was no way he was going to risk coming to the United States. I had volunteered to go to Colombia with my team. Our bosses said it was too dangerous. I had been invited many times, and I was getting tired of saying no. But I was dealing with the men that were dealing with him directly.”
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1 Robert Mazur Wasn’t Putting On Much Of An Act In Real Life
Robert Mazur Claims He Never Put On A Show
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The Infiltrator shows Robert Mazur struggling at times to balance his dual lives, and the film even seems to suggest that he’s warming up to Robert Alcaino or at least has a moment of guilt when he’s arrested. In the same interview with Men’s Journal, Mazur discussed whether he actually ever grew too close to any of Pablo Escobar’s officers, to which he replied by saying, “I never forgot who I was and why I was there.“
Mazur explains that his training for Operation C-Chase informed him to watch out for Stockholm Syndrome, but that he was always focused. However, he also claims that he wasn’t a good actor and that he was mainly just playing himself. Bryan Cranston’s portrayal in The Infiltrator offers a charismatic machismo, but Mazur claims his version of Bob Musella was more authentic to his real self.
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Sources: Men’s Journal
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6/10 10/10 The Infiltrator RBiographyDramaCrime
The Infiltrator, directed by Brad Furman, chronicles the efforts of a U.S. Customs official who goes undercover to expose a complex money laundering operation tied to the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. Set in the 1980s, the film delves into the intricate world of crime and corruption.
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*Availability in US Director Brad Furman Release Date July 13, 2016 Cast John Leguizamo , Rubén Ochandiano , Diane Kruger , Juliet Aubrey , Saïd Taghmaoui , Amy Ryan , Benjamin Bratt , Simón Andreu , Bryan Cranston , Joseph Gilgun
Source: https://truongnguyenbinhkhiem.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment