MOVIE REVIEW: 'American Made' is thrill-ride ‘true life’ depiction of audacious drug smuggler/alleged CIA operative Barry Seal

Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is a thrill-seeking commercial pilot who breaks bad in Doug Liman’s American Made, the based-on-a-true-story film about the Medellin drug cartel’s prime American importer.
Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is a thrill-seeking commercial pilot who breaks bad in Doug Liman’s American Made, the based-on-a-true-story film about the Medellin drug cartel’s prime American importer.

Like the contraband Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) used to fly in and out of the United States, American Made can be delightfully intoxicating, even though the aftereffects can be sobering and possibly deadly.

While the opening titles declare "based on a true story," director Doug Limon (The Bourne Identity) and screenwriter Gary Spinelli are more interested in following John Ford's advice to "print the legend." In real life, Seal, who based his smuggling operations at Mena's Intermountain Municipal Airport from 1976 to 1984 (the film was originally titled Mena) often implied his running of cannabis, cocaine and quaaludes for the Medellin cartel was just a cover for his real work. His claims of having guardian angels on the federal and state payrolls, seemed credible because he operated with impunity. (Until he wasn't -- it's no secret that he was murdered, presumably by his former drug buddies, in 1986.)

American Made

88 Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Lola Kirke, Jayma Mays, Alejandro Edda, Benito Martinez, E. Roger Mitchell, Jed Rees, Fredy Yate Escobar, Mauricio Mejia

Director: Doug Liman

Rating: R, for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

In the late 1970s, Seal is a commercial pilot for the now-defunct TWA. It's a comfortable gig, but he didn't take up flying to spend his days in soul crushing routine. So he perks up when a friendly young fellow named "Schafer" (Domhnall Gleeson) suggests that he can use his skills for more lucrative and exciting tasks instead of occasionally sneaking Cuban goods out of Canada. The fact that Schafer wavers between confirming and denying that he works for the CIA makes the offer sound even more tempting.

While it's fairly obvious that Seal's journeys aren't legal, they aren't secret, either. Schafer seems to know everything about the pilot as do a group of Colombian businessmen named Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda), Carlos Ledher (Fredy Yate Escobar) and Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejia). If you've heard of them, it's because in real life, Seal helped their Bogota gold make it safely to the States.

Liman and Spinelli populate the outline of Seal's life with an amusing series of figures from recent history who might or, probably, might not have had anything to do with him and his illicit cargo. Prominent people who'd later become household names unexpectedly show up and have a stake in Seal's fate. (Liman's late father Arthur L. Liman, was chief Senate counsel during the Iran-Contra hearings, which get prominently featured here.)

Even more enjoyable are the fictional characters Spinelli invents in Mena. Seal's wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright), chews out her husband for risking their family's safety but doesn't seem to mind the mountains of cash he brings back from his trips. Her brother JB (Caleb Landry Jones) is mesmerizing simply because he goes through life as if he were wearing an "Arrest Me" T-shirt. Even Polk County's naive sheriff (Jesse Plemons, Breaking Bad, the second season of Fargo) knows something's up when JB carries a case full of dripping cash.

Casting Cruise is a remarkably clever decision. His Louisiana accent is passable, and while he bears no resemblance to the real pilot (whom Medellin cartel members dubbed "El Gordo" or "The Fat Guy"), he plays Seal as an older variation on his Maverick character from Top Gun. Scaring a planeload of commercial passengers by pretending to encounter turbulence simply to keep yourself entertained is a real cowboy move. Now that he's older, Cruise comes off as if he's itching to re-create the adrenaline rushes that were his standard operating practice before family and his own mortality made him hesitate.

While American Made mightn't hold up in court, Liman's sense of tone convinces. American Made effortlessly shifts from a giddy rush to an appropriately nagging feeling that governments and criminals make odd and dangerous bedfellows. Such deals occasionally make the one Robert Johnson supposedly signed in blood at the crossroads seem like a relative bargain. He also has a great eye for action scenes and incorporates visual techniques from '80s educational cartoons that indicate his film, while cleverly constructed, shouldn't be mistaken for gospel.

Cruise's Seal often tells his own story in American Made, but it's hard to know when he's on the level. Perhaps it's that difficulty that makes the tale so fascinating 30 years after he flew covert missions.

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Mena housewife Lucy (Sarah Wright) doesn’t want to know too much about her husband’s business in American Made.

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Pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) finds himself caught between a CIA agent who calls himself Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) and the Medellin cartel in American Made.

MovieStyle on 09/29/2017

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