American Made

Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but the guy can still handily carry a film on his shoulders when need be.

Based on a true story, American Made tells the tale of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a TWA commercial airline pilot who, through events that really do need to be seen to be believed, manages to make the transition from regular pilot, to CIA lackey, to drug smuggling, Pablo Escobar meeting, money laundering superstar in the span of just a few years. By playing into the CIA and drug cartel’s game, Seal metaphorically begins to fly a little too close to the sun, and as the years tick by and his operations begin to mount, Seal’s problems begin to grow, problems that put not only himself in danger, but his family and friends as well. Now it’s on him to decide whether this life he’s carved out for himself is worth the price of admission, or if he’s too far in over his head to get out alive.

For a movie that I bought tickets to simply because I was bored and needed something to do, American Made surprised me in more ways than I was expecting. There’s an interesting amount of dramatic tension throughout, a wicked sense of humor that successfully offsets said tension when needed and a lead that is just as good as he’s ever been. Throw a competent director like Doug Liman into the mix, and you have a solid film that excels in unexpected ways, even if it doesn’t do anything particularly unique or new in the grand scheme of things.

Being based on a true story – and depending on how much creative freedom the filmmakers imposed on said story – most of the issues stemming from this script come from the way these events play out onscreen. A lot of time passes between the opening credits and the end roll, but I never felt like I was watching that time pass within the context of the story as the filmmakers clearly intended. The only real benchmark that tells us that the plot is being told across a span of a handful of years comes from the title cards plastered on screen each time we jump forward in time as well as Seal’s children who do little more than change child actors throughout the film. As much as I enjoyed what I was seeing, I never felt the weight of it all and since Seal is so nonchalant about most of the legal and illegal acts he’s committing, the sense of danger is lessened from time to time as the passage of months and years never fully solidify the fact that this guy was always one step away from having everything come crashing down around him at a moments notice.

Granted, I guess that’s the point of it all considering the way the film ended, and while I know this is based on a true story, the filmmakers opted for a rather blunt and quick ending, one that seemed at odds with the way the rest of the film was handled. Obviously the way it ended happened in real life, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the filmmakers could have wrapped things up in a little more thoughtful or – for lack of a better word – “dramatic” kind of way. Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised by most of what this film had to offer, but I also have to recognize the fact that a few scenes and plot lines were handled in a very unusual way, most noticeably in the first act where the humor that becomes so blatantly apparent throughout the rest of the film was having a hard time finding its place. It almost seemed like this film was two separate movies at times, only able to settle into its groove about 45 minutes to an hour in, but once it does, it’s a great ride worth sitting in a theater for.

As mentioned before, Tom Cruise does most of the heavy lifting throughout the film being the only real “main character” that we follow with Domhnall Gleeson and Sarah Wright filling in nicely when the script calls for it. Gleeson is able to play off of Cruise quite well in the handful of scenes they share, giving his character just enough mystery and menace to question what his true motives are while Wright channels a little bit of Morgot Robbie’s breakout performance in The Wolf of Wall Street, surprising me in almost every scene she was in. Other than that, there’s a few other stand out performances that don’t last very long, but while they do, it’s a whole lot of fun to watch.

Entertaining and humorous throughout, American Made comes off like one of those forgettable “package deal” films on the surface but ends up being a much more competent and well acted film than initially expected. The movie has a bit of an identity crisis before it really hits it’s stride, but the seemingly everlasting charm of Tom Cruise and the stranger than fiction plot help elevate this film to a point that it’s worth a watch if you just want to get into a theater and escape for a couple hours.