American Made - Review

American Made

Director Doug Liman, noted for such films as “The Bourne Identity”, “The Bourne Supremacy”, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Jason Bourne” continues to pad his already rather impressive resume with his latest true story effort titled “American Made” starring Tom Cruise.

“American Made” tells the amazing true story of commercial pilot, aka CIA operative, aka drug dealer, aka arms dealer, aka human trafficker Barry Seal (Cruise). Barry is a happily married man flying jets for TWA around 1978. Only problem is he is bored with his mundane career, seemingly flying from varying stops that are all becoming a singular blur to him ranging from Miami, Chicago and Washington DC to smaller markets like Pine Bluff, Charlotte to Tampa (so to speak). So with that as background we understand in the initial frame of the film when we see Barry who is so bored with what he does for a living that on one night time flight he deliberately takes his jet out of auto pilot to nose dive his plane just to watch the passengers’ reaction.

One day while flying into Miami, we see Barry smuggling some small amount of insignificant piece of Cuban contraband to a contact who works at an airport bar. The exchange is rather routine for Barry and up to that moment he has always gone unnoticed. Until on this one particular day he notices a red haired and bearded gentleman (Domhnall Gleeson) named Schafer making direct eye contact with him during the exchange. Schafer also then proceeds to introduce himself and coveys a litany of personal information about Barry that only some high level federal agency would have known. “Uh – Oh”, Barry has been made by the CIA. 

But rather than accusing Barry of some terrible criminal offense, Schafer offers Barry a rather interesting proposition in the way of coming to work for the government (in a manner of speaking) by strictly off the books fly very low aerial reconnaissance missions in a fast propeller plane in central America over specific countries that were immersed in burgeoning communist civil war conflicts.

From that one meeting we watch Barry Seal’s life be transformed overnight into an unbelievable story that would include him being involved in one of biggest covert CIA operations in United States history as well as help spawned the birth of the Medellin drug cartel and Pablo Escobar that almost brings down President Reagan in a constitutional scandal.

REVIEW: “American Made” is an almost 2 hour nonstop, energetic, flashy, smart, humorous and stylish romp of a film. In a story filled with layered intricacies, multiple moving parts and personalities and players all of whom have varying motives to grasp and comprehend, some of them big and others small in relevance and stature, overall the film is still very easy to comprehend as a highly pleasant and entertaining effort to watch. And while almost everything Barry does or happens to him is hard to believe much less imagine, Director Liman makes this film work from beginning to end with very few missteps.  

Without divulging any significant aspects to the film’s story, the film offers up Barry Seal not so much as some major harden criminal and more of the affable personable neighbor next door who still had a bit of Frat boy left in him. And when we see him in this dangerous new aspect of his life we also see the best and most clever of Barry’s personality ranging from moments of being a bit of a cagey West Texas Flying Cowboy to being the consummate smart street hustler, always thinking on his feet without a shred of panic in his DNA.

Yes, Barry is reckless, but he is also very calculating. Barry is crazier than hell, but far from being thought of as stupid. Barry is impulsive and does things by the seat of his pants, but he is never so far removed from reality that he doesn’t always have a plan to avoid pending disasters as we watch him skip death at every turn. And yet, we equally watch him manage to succeed in making more and more money as he gets further and further involved with more and more covert officials and more and more third world underground criminals. Barry is an old style western outlaw who rides a plane rather than horse who uses his pilot's license and his throttle as his gun.

Structurally “American Made” is at times both quite amusing and thrilling with some very unique and very memorable scenes. One involved Barry trying to take off for the first time in the jungles of Central America with a load of Pablo Escobar drugs. The second was a scene with Barry using money to explain to his wife exactly his new line of work. The third was the whole sequence of events of Barry’s redneck idiot brother laws arrival to his home in Mena, Arkansas. And finally a scene where Barry out maneuvers U.S. Customs and Border Protection pilots over the Gulf of Mexico.

But ultimately in the end the real reason to see “American Made” is Tom Cruise”. While the movie is very good, Cruise is great as he delivers his best performance in 10+ years. Not only is he exceptional in his performance, you can really see he is having a lot of fun. While technically we are watching a real life criminal at work in his Barry Seal, Cruise makes Seal more of a charming and personable “go with the flow” kind of guy, who seems more flawed than ever actually being some big time villain on anyone’s most wanted list.

More very light comedy than drama, "American Made has some parts that are mock documentary in style, other parts serious drama when the CIA, FBI, DEA, ATM and Secret Service get into the collective mix and other equal parts fast paced action film with crisp aerial scenes of planes flying to avoid detection. Director Liman's “American Made” delivers with all of the right stuff with Cruise at the helm and in control each step of the way. And while Cruise is actually 55 years old he manages to still portray Barry Seal with the right amount of youthful vigor that few if any Hollywood actors today could have done of a man living every aspect of his shorten life at break neck speed.

A final thought. As most film fans know by now Cruise is rebooting his iconic “Top Gun” sequel sometime in 2018 which I am sure will draw upon some of the components that make that 1986 film a global favorite as well as incorporating some new aspects of naval aviation life for the newer generation of fans to possible enjoy. With that aside I had an epiphany thought come to me..........a moment of what if  ..........“hmmmmmmmm”  after watching “American Made”. I wonder to myself if Cruise or anyone writing the screenplay to his "TOP gun 2”, would have the audacious courage of telling the new story of aviator Lt Pete “Maverick” Mitchell with some of the same character flaws of Barry Seal, just to take film fans on a pleasant and unexpected ride…………………….Eh probably not, - it was just the thought and as usual I digress.

In any event, please see “American Made” and watch the world's number one box office star Tom Cruise do what he has been doing for almost 40 plus year now with great consistency ………….”always delivering”.

3.75 Stars