Benjamin Bratt plays Roberto Alacaino, a high-ranking member of Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel, in “The Infiltrator,” but to hear the actor tell it, the character is someone to be admired.
“He uses a kind of twisted logic to rationalize what he does for a living,” Bratt told TheWrap in a recent interview.”[But] that aside, he’s in possession of qualities that all of us seek to have for ourselves.”
Bratt explained that his character doesn’t see his career as something inherently evil, he’s simply meeting the demand of consumers. And other than his occupation, Bratt says there’s a lot to admire in someone like Alcaino.
“He’s a person of real integrity, he has principle,” he said. “He’s a loyal and dear friend, he’s a family man, he’s a man of faith. He’s a doting father and a loving husband. He’s smart, charming, worldy. What’s not to like about this guy?”
Based on Robert Mazur’s autobiography of the same name, “The Infiltrator” stars Bryan Cranston as Mazur, the DEA agent, who used his undercover alias “Bob Musella” to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s powerful underworld empire and crack his money-laundering scheme.
Bratt’s Alcaino is a high-ranking official in Escobar’s organization, who Bratt describes as “someone who has already reached a level of power that now leaves him to keep his hands clean. He simply points his finger, or gives a look or a word, and the job gets done.”
And Bratt said that when researching his character by listening to recordings of Mazur’s conversations with Alcaino, it became clear that despite his many good qualities, the man had to employ some level of force and intimidation to reach those levels of success.
“There was always an underlying threat of comeuppance,” Bratt said. “If you double cross me, if you do anything to wrong me or the people you work for … no good could come of it.”