The Infiltrator

So I am of the mindset that everything Bryan Cranston does is gold. I don't know how he does it but ever since Breaking Bad opened up a lot of serious opportunities for him as an actor, he's taken that opportunity and run far with it.

I didn't see a lot of trailers for The Infiltrator, but when I heard Bryan Cranston, I assumed it was at the very least going to be pretty entertaining, but I wondered if this was just an opportunity for Cranston to get involved with an action movie like actors of his age like to do from time to time like Liam Neeson in Taken, Pierce Brosnan in November Man, etc. While I don't hate that idea, some might consider a route like that to be selling out and it seemed like The Infiltrator could possibly be an entertaining movie but nothing special.

How foolish was I to ever doubt the talent and choices of Bryan Cranston.

The Infiltrator follows the true story of Robert Mazur, a US Customs agent who has had a long career going undercover to bust drug dealers and is coming towards a time in his career where he's thinking about retiring with his wife (Juliet Aubrey) and two kids.

However, he gets wind of a new opportunity to go undercover with the Colombian Cartel and instead of following the drugs to the criminals, he has the idea to follow the money to the criminals.

He creates the cover of Bob Musella, a corrupt businessman, in order to infiltrate the money laundering operations of Pablo Escobar and his Colombian Cartel and he finds himself in the midst of an intense and complex undercover mission to take down one of the largest criminal enterprises in the 80s.

The Infiltrator is following a slight trend that I'm seeing where it's a historical crime story set int he 80s following the police work to bring down the Colombian Cartel. You're seeing it more in shows like Narcos and other mediums and it's a niche of crime films that I am actually starting to really dig. You don't really realize it these days, but the 80s were almost 40 years ago and they're getting the same treatment I think the 60s got with movies like Catch Me If You Can, Forrest Gump, and JFK. I don't know if more things are getting unclassified or maybe when you reach a forty year mark things become historically interesting but it's also a sign I'm getting really old.

But The Infiltrator, like I said, is actually a deceptively intense movie. I mean some of the movie is stuff that you've seen before and stuff that you come to expect when watching a movie about a guy going undercover, however, The Infiltrator is written and Bryan Cranston performs in such a way that it feels new and it is incredibly intense.

This is also very surprising because Bob isn't going undercover with the drug dealers or the people who go and kill people, he's going undercover with the highest rungs of the Colombian criminal enterprise.

A big part of the movie is him schmoozing with Benjamin Bratt's character who is one of Pablo Escobar's inner circle. Still a dangerous guy and Bratt plays him in a way that you feel that intensity still, but honestly a lot of the movie is Bob and the female customs agent playing his wife (played by Diane Kruger) just getting to know and making friends with Bratt's character and his character's wife. And I know you're thinking that sounds incredibly boring, however, it manages to keep the intensity up, especially when you overlay it with reminders of what could happen to Bob if he or his partner say one wrong word.

John Leguizamo is in this movie and he plays a fellow Customs agent by the name of Emir. Emir sets up a cover that is a more traditional one. He goes undercover with the guys selling the drugs and doing a lot of the day to day operations, kind of what you would expect and undercover mission to go down as.

I've seen Leguizamo in a lot of films. Some of them he's been good, some of them he hasn't been so good. But I'm pretty sure this is the performance of his that I love the most because he represents a side of the job that Bob is teetering on. Emir loves his job and the danger that comes with it. He almost gets off on it and he both serves as a warning to Bob and how he could get sucked up in this job, as well as a safeguard. There are moments where even Emir has to stand back and say that Bob is cutting it close and risking things with this job and it's a really interesting relationship these two have.

And then there's Diane Kruger.

 So believe it or not, I actually like Diane Kruger. She was very good in movies like National Treasure and Inglorious Basterds. I think in a role where she is playing someone where they can explain why she has that German accent, I think she does a very good job.

However, I've noticed in movies where she is playing an America, she can't help but sneak that accent out and it's kind of noticeable while she's playing American customs agent, Kathy Ertz.

Which is a shame because she actually does a good job in this film. I think that her character was kind of thrown into the movie very quickly with very little introduction, especially with how important her character becomes to Bob. She and Bob develop a very close relationship and it's because they are pulling the cover as though they are married. There is an element that makes it a little bit weird, especially since Bryan Cranston is about 21 years older than Kruger, however, I think that these two work together very, very well and especially in the moments where they delve into Bob's relationship with his wife, Diane Kruger has an opportunity to really shine.

And speaking of Cranston's age. I don't want to knock the guy for being 61. I think as long as he's able to perform as great as he does all the time, it doesn't matter what his age is. However, something that I picked up on in the beginning was I think Bob Mazur was supposed to be in his forties during the events of this film. You can add all the black dye to Bryan Cranston's hair all you want, he still looks like he's in his fifties and even maybe his sixties at times.

Is this a big deal for the film? Not really. Bryan Crantson has proven time and time again that he is one of the best actors out there today and he gives such a dynamite performance that I really forgot how old he is once the story started rolling.

I think there's a possibility that this could be one of the last opportunities for Cranston to play a character like this because of his age so it's a good thing that it happened. But even that I'm skeptical of due to how great of an actor he is.

What are my problems with the movie? Not a lot honestly, I think that this was one of the hidden gems of 2016 that really went under the radar for a lot of people.

Maybe one of the criticisms I could have is that it does pull a lot of conventional undercover cliches that remind me to always take the words "Based on a True Story" with a grain of salt. But at the same

time I think they also manage to pull out some interesting relationships and twists and turns with that undercover story that make it really interesting.

I really do think that it's a hidden gem of 2016 and something that people should check out. If you're a fan of the show Narcos, you will definitely like The Infiltrator, but even if you're not, you get a bunch of really great performances from a wide range of actors like Cranston, Leguizamo, Bratt, Kruger, and a lot of other really great actors throughout.

Something I didn't mention is the emotional drama of this film. I don't want to give away the ending but like I said earlier, a lot of the movie is Bob and Kathy getting to know Benjamin Bratt's character, Roberto Alcaino and his wife and that does have some emotional strings to it. Nothing you're going to cry over, but it is interesting and does make for a good thriller drama combination all around.

Overall, I really recommend The Infiltrator. I think it was marketed as an action film from what I can gather from the trailer, but it actually is a really intense thriller about the US's investigation and take down of the Colombian Cartel in the 80s.

But what did you think of The Infiltrator? Did you like it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Doctor Who: Season 1

So this review might seem random and out of place but my decision to watch the first season of modern Doctor Who was really random and out of place too. I am on a little bit of a fantasy sci fi kick right now and I had been watching random episodes of Doctor Who here and there, but I wanted to go back to where it started. I wasn't originally planning on doing a review on this season, especially since I've watched this season and random episodes of Doctor Who sporadically over the past few years that I didn't review. I changed my mind after I finished the last episode because there is a lot to say about this season and the impact it had on Doctor Who back in 2005 and today.

After multiple attempts to try and revive Doctor Who with film and I guess an attempt to reboot the series in the states, BBC regained the rights to Doctor Who and aired the new rebooted season in 2005. Now I did not watch the show back in 2005. I actually didn't jump onto the Doctor Who train really until 2012, well into Matt Smith's tenure, but I always wanted to start the show from the beginning, no matter how difficult that was.

Doctor Who begins centered around a young girl named Rose (played by Billie Piper). She has a pretty normal life in London, she lives with her chatty mom Jackie (played by Camilie Coduri) and has a boyfriend named Mickie (played by Noel Clarke).

One day her life is turned upside down when a strange man enters her life, calling himself The Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston). After a brush with death and the end of the world involving living plastic and killer mannequins, he offers her the opportunity to travel with him on his spaceship called The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) which looks like a 1970's British Police Box. Rose joins him and the two go on adventures through time and space, fighting aliens and trying to help people across the universe.

I have no shame in saying this because I know I'm not the only one. When I first started Doctor Who, it took me a while to really get into it. The first season is very different from the rest of the series and the budget was so minimal that visually, it really didn't age well. On top of that, the acting is pretty

hokey and the first three episodes, while I have come to appreciate The Unquiet Dead, are not exactly the most compelling episodes ever. It wasn't really until the episode, Dalek, that the show started to intrigue me and that's the 6th episode. If you're a normal person, you usually don't sit through 5 episodes of television if you don't think it's good. I however am not a normal person and that hasn't really changed (hence why I'm still begrudgingly watching Iron Fist right now).

However, what I have found recently is that Doctor Who does build on itself. The perfect example of this is the episode in Series 4 called Silence in the Library, the first episode to feature the character River Song. I remember watching that for the first time and thinking that it was a really good episode. Watching it now, the episode only gets better and is frankly heart breaking. All these episodes compound on one another and they gain significance after future episodes air and things are revealed.

The same can be said about the first series. While visually it probably hasn't aged well, the stories and the character development definitely has. You can tell that they went back and watched old episodes of Christopher Eccleston and incorporated his performance and story arc into future episodes and it really makes his performance better with future context.

However, when looking at this show objectively (at least as objectively as I can) I do have to think about both the historical context this show finds itself in in regard to the rest of the series, as well as the experience someone might have if they're watching Doctor Who for the first time and have no previous knowledge, like I did.

And in that mindset, I will say, the first series is still a little bit of a handful and it takes some getting used to.

The series starts with the episode Rose, which while it has a great introduction to the character of The Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose, it's a little bit cheesy with the acting. Furthermore, the production value and the visuals really haven't aged well and you're going to feel that the entire season. Now this eventually becomes a subject of nostalgia because Doctor Who prior to the Matt Smith years had this very dirty and almost cheap feeling to it. It wasn't until Season 5 in 2010 when the show's budget was raised and the visuals actually catch up with the science fiction material Doctor Who could create. This is a good thing and a bad thing, especially in Season 1. There's a running joke that the Doctor and Rose are in The TARDIS, a machine that can travel anywhere in time and space and they keep on ending up in Cardiff for half of the episodes. It's obvious the budget was limited when you start seeing the same sets and the same characters reappear, even though there's only 13 episodes. The other episodes would set the standard for what future Doctor Who seasons would look like, a mixture of The Doctor and his companion going to new worlds, meeting strange aliens, and going back in time to either meet historical figures or witness historic events.

Something that I kind of forgot about when watching this season again was the incredibly dark turns this show takes in this first season. A lot of people die in this first season and that's one of the elements that they worked the limited budget into well.

For example, during the Parting of the Ways, did you recall that the Daleks actually attack Earth and we watch the continental shapes change as they bomb Earth. I really forgot how dark those episodes, especially the series finale really was. I think it worked well however, because in probably the best two part episode in the Season, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, Eccleston has this great line where he says, just this once, Everybody lives.

Now if you've followed Doctor Who consistently since this season, you know that it's a little more than just this once. There are several episodes actually where Everybody lives and everyone is risen from the dead by the Doctor in some mcguffin method, however back in the day with this first season, this actually meant something. Like I said, there are a lot of dark episodes in this season and this actually meant something to see everyone live at the end of the episode.

And this segways well into my thoughts on Eccleston as The Doctor himself. The Doctor has had many personalities and many experiences that shape who he is as a character. Eccleston's Doctor appears at a time where he has lived through the Time War and has seen the destruction of the Time Lords. The experience is very new to him and he holds that guilt in.

Everything from his performance to his U-Boat captain clothes shows that he's a man used to war and is now settling into "peace time" and that takes some getting used to.

You can tell that he feels like he doesn't exactly need a companion or Rose in particular, however, you can tell that he wants one and that proves to be necessary down the road as Rose begins to show him his humanity.

Now all of this is pretty high concept for someone coming in cold and not having the rest of the series in mind but it still is something that can be caught onto, especially in the performance of Eccleston himself.

He is very kind but at the same time there are several points in the series where his guilt shows for what happened during the Time War. There are several creatures who were displaced from the Time War and Rose and The Doctor's adventures put them in the path of these creatures.

This performance is only made better if you've been watching the show for a while and you see the fallout of his decision, the events that have happened since, and the 50th Anniversary where you actually see The War Doctor fight in the Time War and make the horrible decisions that The 9th Doctor comes to regret so much.

Watching this season just makes me really bummed that Eccleston did not return for the 50th Anniversary and did not reprise his role as the 9th Doctor. As much as I like The War Doctor, I don't know if he would have existed had Eccleston returned. I could be wrong on that, but even if he had, it would have been fun to see all three modern Doctors interacting together, with or without the talent of the great late John Hurt.

The thing that makes the 9th Doctor so fun is that he's both very serious but at the same time incredibly goofy. He's not Matt Smith goofy where he falls down or makes a fool of himself, but he's got jokes and he brings a lot of comedy to the show as well as some really deep and profound performances. He is unapologetic of who he is and when Rose says in the last episode that he taught her the importance of standing up and fighting for what's right, you see it in his character.

Something that I thought was missing from Peter Capaldi's Doctor was a sense that the Doctor cared for the people he was trying to save as opposed to just saving them because he could. Again, Eccleston struck a balance between being a serious character to having incredible empathy for those in need.

I think back to the episode Father's Day where the couple getting married say that they're not important and the Doctor refuted that saying that their far from unimportant. It was lines like this that I felt were missing from the 12th Doctor's tenure and something Eccleston did really well.

And that empathy was brought out by his relationship with Rose. And my thought was, between the 9th Doctor and Rose, it never NEEDED to be romantic.

I always thought the kiss at the end of The Parting of Ways was always a little bit strange, especially since Rose is supposed to be 19, which is legal, but Eccleston looks like he's in his forties so it was a little bit of an age gap. It made sense with Tennant because they looked as though they were closer in age and there was a little more chemistry between the two of them, but with 9 and Rose, I never felt like it needed to be a romantic relationship. They were just friends traveling and he was like the Magician and she was his apprentice. There's even an episode where the Doctor miscalculates and Rose goes missing for a year and her mom actually questions what a 19 year old girl is doing with a guy like the Doctor, and yeah, it's a valid question.

I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of people who have watched Doctor Who since the beginning were very young when they started. I think having such a young protagonist with such a naive look and feel was necessary to introduce new people to the series, especially those who had never seen the old series.

Rose has always had some awkward lines here and there, especially in season two, however in season 1, it fits in as she is just a regular girl. She's not really special in any way, she's just a regular girl and in that way she relates to the audience in that we are just normal and yet there's a possibility of jumping into the TARDIS and going on an adventure, and that's very appealing to people.

Rose is still my personal favorite companion but objectively I understand why there are two camps when it comes to her, people who love her and people who can't stand her. I've met both kinds of people and I understand both arguments. I personally think that at the very least, Billie Piper was phenomenal in the first season of Doctor Who and she was a great companion to begin the series with.

So what does this season of Doctor Who mean for future seasons and where we're at now?

I personally think the first season of Doctor Who is quite the underrated season. Is it the best? Far from it. While I have found an appreciation for all the episodes with the Slytheen and the repetitive Satellite 5 episodes, let's live in reality, they're not the best episodes Doctor Who has to offer.

But if you're an avid Doctor Who fan, I suggest going back and checking out the first season. It only gets better with more context and the knowledge of later episodes.

If you have never watched Doctor Who before, I will warn you, the first season is not the best. There are some really slow episodes and yeah there is an episode where the bad guy is a stretched out piece of skin. However, I highly recommend pushing through and enjoying every minute of the first season as you can because it really does pay off later. It creates a foundation for what Doctor Who is and while it definitely is not the best season, it creates a lot of room for growth, especially for the characters they introduce in it.

I want to continue rewatching seasons of Doctor Who and give full season reviews. Unfortunately now that I've said it I can't say it will come true, however, I'm on a pretty big Doctor Who/Sci Fi Fantasy kick right now so every so often a review like this might pop up.

I want to know your thoughts on this seriously though. Where does the first season land on your list of favorite Doctor Who episodes? Did you start with the first season? Or did you start later on? Let me know what you think of the first season with the knowledge and viewing of later seasons and how it lives up today.

Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I actually don't think I ever watched this short. If you're familiar with the end of the first season, you'll know that Christopher Eccleston regenerates into David Tennant. This is the interaction that happens after that regeneration. Enjoy!

Marvel's The Defender's Trailer

So I haven't done a review in a hot second and unfortunately it's because I haven't had much time to watch many movies. I've been watching a lot of Doctor Who though. I went back to the first season and I actually am thinking about doing a review on that and give my thoughts on that season. I haven't done a review on Doctor Who for a while and with the news of Peter Capaldi leaving the show, it might be good to look back before I really get into the new season.

However, I do want to do a review, if only a really quick one and a reaction to the new trailer for The Defenders.

I do have to say, it is really cool to see all four of these guys together.

We've seen characters cross over in these series. Rosario Dawson's character has been in each season as her character Claire. But with the exception of Luke Cage in Jessica Jones (and maybe someone who made a cross over in Iron Fist... I'll be honest I haven't finished it) there hasn't been any real cross overs yet that have meant as much as this one does.

It looks really cool to see these four misfits come together and be this super bad ass super team.

The interesting thing about this trailer was that there was nothing really mature rated about it. This did not necessarily feel like the dark series that I've seen in the past, it felt like a comic book movie. Which is good and bad.

On one hand, I have really gotten used to these shows being dark and gritty. While I haven't finished Iron Fist, that is one thing I have noticed, that there isn't as much mature content and it feels more like a comic book. I'm sure that once The Defenders actually airs, it will display the same grittiness and matureness that I saw in shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones and less of the comic book campiness from the first two episodes of Iron Fist.

Another thing that I really like from this trailer is the very little set up it offers and yet at the same time it is showing exactly what we needed to know to go into this season.

Obviously, there is the team up. Like I said, seeing all four on screen together is pretty cool. But the conflict and villains in the series is something that is very intriguing.

As expected, The Hand is back and it is clear that they are bringing Elecktra (played by Elodie Yung) as a sort of villain. Which was to be expected when she "died" in the second season of Daredevil and The Hand put her in that catacomb or whatever. I personally liked Elodie Yung as Elecktra and I'm glad they'll be bringing her back. I don't really know how she will manage to be a threat against a team, especially one with Luke Cage in it. If his series showed me anything, it's that nothing really can kill him. But it's good to see returning characters back.

And of course the biggest conflict is that of Sigourney Weaver being the villain.

I don't know what Weaver's role in the whole thing is going to be and frankly I don't care right now. I think they handled her appearance in the trailer perfectly. They showed us that she is going to be the villain, she looks bad ass, but I have absolutely no idea what she's going to do as the villain or what her plot is.

That is what you need when you make a trailer like this. Keep it vague, show some of the conflict but not all of it, just enough to keep the audience wondering and get me pumped for when this show finally drops.

As I've mentioned, the team looks really great together, but more importantly, it doesn't seem like any of the characters (based off the trailer alone) lose their personality by being in a team. They seem like they're going to clash and that was expected to happen, especially with these 4.

Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Daredevil are all characters that are really well done characters and it's good to see them again, especially Jessica Jones who we haven't seen since 2015. I think not only will these four look really good fighting side by side, but I think they're going to play off one another very well. They all are phenomenal solo acts and great as individuals. The intrigue is going to be when they all come together and have to interact with one another. It could be great, it could go terribly. I don't know. But I'm excited to check it out.

Now... you may have noticed that I really haven't talked about Iron Fist yet...

Here's the dilemma I find myself in...

I'm already really not interested in watching the rest of Iron Fist. I have finished 2 of 13 episodes and I am really dragging my feet on watching the rest of it. The trailer for the most part was a reminder that I needed to finish that season before I could start this, so in a way it's a motivator to push through and watch it.

But even in this trailer I already hate Iron Fist more.

I might have mentioned this in the review I did for the pilot of Iron Fist, but I really hate the character already. I call him Hipster Tyrell. In the few episodes I have seen, he comes off as an immature idiot who sounds like a crazy person with all the mumbo jumbo he mentions about being the immortal Iron Fist... and then he goes off and mentions it in this trailer.

This is a really good trailer, especially for a Netflix series, especially one trying to recreate the same magic that The Avengers did, but for TV series. I just can't quite get over the feeling that Marvel really screwed up Iron Fist, and now it's too late to get him killed off or something. Maybe they would have done that in this series if they knew how much of a bomb the first season of Iron Fist was going to be but now it's too late and we're stuck with stupid Danny Rand.

I mean Netflix is supposed to come out with a season for The Punisher, a very popular character played by Jon Bernthal in the second season of Daredevil as well. I mean can't you imagine this Defenders poster with these characters instead?

I should lay off knocking Iron Fist, I'm sure that that show has already garnered enough criticism from the people who have actually watched all 13 episodes, that was the only thing that bothered me about this trailer.

But what did you think? Are you excited for The Defenders? Is there anything that was missing from that trailer? What would you like to see happen to these heroes? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So I wanted to put the trailer for the new Dark Tower movie up for my last video, but you know me, I can't always do that on my blog. So instead I'm going to leave The link to that video here and instead you get a funny video that Dan Harmon, the creator of Rick and Marty and Community made a while ago. Enjoy!