“The Infiltrator” is the true story about an FBI undercover agent, Richard Mazur, who for many years risks not only his life but the life of his wife and 2 children to break into the world of drug trafficking as a money launderer. The end result of Mazur arresting so many bankers and drug pushers was successful but the risks he took were enormous, especially considering the murder and torture people like this are able inflict so easily and frequently to so many people. What surprised me the most about this story is why would the FBI or any other Federal agency would allow any person who was married and had a family take risks like this in the first place. It is also hard to understand why would anyone want to take risks like this considering the huge downside of your own torture and murder when you must realize that if you stop one or many of these dangerous criminals, more will just take their place soon after they are incarcerated or killed. Considering the overwhelming stress and fear undercover agents like this go through for so many years I find it amazing that anyone could even do this kind of job for any length of time.

This film took place in the 80’s when cocaine was flowing to this country mostly from Columbia at very high rate. When you consider all the efforts after 30 years to alleviate this problem it should be obvious by now that maybe just legalizing cocaine is the only solution because trying to stop the enormous flow of this drug from South America to the Unites States just has never worked for any meaningful length of time.

As far as this film, it was very well acted and the story was very well told. Bryan Cranston was excellent in the starring role as was John Leguizamo who also played an FBI undercover agent. There is some extreme violence in this film but not overly so and the level of tension is pretty high throughout the movie. Some parts of the story were not explained well and were at times hard to follow but overall I thought this was a very well told story.

I do recommend the Infiltrator.

The idea that someone had after 30 years to bring back the Ghostbusters franchise was a very good one. It was even a better idea this time, to have four women as the Ghostbusters. This idea should be a huge money maker especially if you include, like in the first movie, some very popular and talented Saturday Night Live cast members. What is not a good idea is to create an average story and script for a great concept of Ghost hunting or busting as it’s called in these movies. If the script is just average and not great like the first Ghostbusters was in 1984 then you run the risk of this movie not creating a new franchise to take advantage of the name recognition and the popularity of the first Ghostbusters movies. I suspect that there will be a Ghostbusters 2 movie like in 1989 but I doubt that there will be a 3rd Ghostbusters movie because this one was just not funny enough or entertaining enough. I do not agree with Richard Roper’s review of this film(see video below), giving it an overall rating of D-. For me, this movie was at best a C+ but like most people who will see this movie they will probably agree that they were expecting an A or at least a B.

Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig are two of the very best Saturday Night Live performers of all time so its a shame they were not used very well in this movie. Melissa McCarthy is probably the top comedic actresses making movies today but in this movie she was also misused. The last Saturday Night Live actor in this film is Leslie Jones who is funny in part of this movie, but once again not funny enough to make it that much better. It was nice to see almost the entire cast of the first Ghostbusters movie from 1984 in this movie in small cameo parts, which was a positive aspect of this movie, but this was not enough to make this anything but an average run of the mill type film.

I do recommend this movie for some of the scenes and special effects but I was expecting an A movie and it was only a C+.

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Cinderella Man which came out in 2005 is one of the greatest all-time boxing movies without any doubt. The boxing scenes, unlike movies like Rocky 3 and 4, were realistic and exactly like the fights were fought in history. This movie is about the boxer James Braddock whose career spanned incredible highs and lows all occurring the time of the Great Depression. The story stretches from his early career which was successful to the middle years where he could not even get a fight and had to work on the docks, constantly struggling for money and even having to ask his friends and trainer for handouts. Braddock had a wife and 3 kids and one can only imagine the struggles of raising a family during the Great Depression.

Braddock’s fight with Max Baer on June 13, 1935, is considered one of the greatest ever and in terms of upsets against a fighter who was not only knocking out but in 2 cases killing his opponents. Braddock’s fight with Baer is the equal to the Ali-Foreman fight in 1974 where like Ali, nobody thought Braddock had a chance and most were afraid he might be killed by Baer. Despite all the long odds, Braddock won in a decision and completed an amazing comeback to win the heavyweight championship.

Ron Howard directed this great movie and its one of his best ever. Russel Crowe was outstanding playing Braddock as was Renée Zellweger who played his wife. The actor who stole the entire movie was Braddock’s trainer, played by Paul Giamonte. Giamonte’s emotion and concern over Braddock and his enthusiasm for his comeback were the best parts of this move and he was nominated for best supporting actor for this role, arguably his best ever.

At the end of this movie, the audience I saw it with stood up and applauded, which is something very rare in my experience. Everything about this movie was great, the acting and the boxing scenes and the great story. Cinderella Man is a definite must see movie.