American Made

• Directed by Doug Liman
• September 19, 2017

A former airline pilot becomes a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and then an informant for the DEA to keep from going to jail. Loosely based on a true story.

I was looking for relatively new movie to watch since I had been on a kick of older to certifiably ancient cinema so I picked American Made because it when it first came out it had piqued my interest, but I never got around to it. As with any fact-based Hollywood movie you should take everything presented with a hefty grain of salt. Feature films are not educational presentations but dramatic presentations. Facts that get in the way of a good show may be ignored or twisted. I can say the broad facts used in this film do appear accurate, but the more nuanced elements are the ones that are harder to label as ‘true.’

The story takes you through the events from Harry’s (Tom Cruise) initial involvement all the way up to the end. The film plays out against the international politics of the time. This explains the motives of those doing what they are doing. If you ever read anything about covert governmental operations, you can see how weird things can get like here. The more involved Seal gets, the more convoluted his situation becomes. He is breaking laws left and right and working for a knot of sides that should be at one another. Opposing sides will join up just because it benefits them both.

Tom Cruise plays the real-life Barry Seal who was nowhere near as good looking as Cruise. Then again, I don’t think the movie would have worked with someone more authentic looking. No smack against Cruise, but one of the things that these biographical movies do is cast people that are way too goodlooking in comparison to who they are supposed to be. That’s in contrast to Robert Farrior as Oliver North who looks like they could be cousins or even brothers.

Seal is a charming, adventurous guy who is probably a bit of an a-hole. On the one hand he has an extreme he loves his family and wants to provide for them. On the other, there is a sense of adventure and leaping before looking attitude about him that gets him caught up over his head in a situation that’s not going to end well.

Domhnall Gleeson takes on the part of the fictitious Monty Schafer who is Seal’s handler. Not mean or evil or even dark–mostly. Just a friendly individual doing his job though the throwing to the wolves and shows a coldness to the character. Gleeson goes from pal to you’re on your own very easily.

We get a government attorney named Dana Sibota (Jayma Mays) that looks like she is getting set up to be a regular law enforcement issue for Barry but nothing amounts to that. Barry’s brother-in-law JB (Caleb Landry Jones) is idiot white trash meant to show how serious of a situation Barry is in because he boogers up and gets killed. Add in the hired hands Barry brings in who are forgettable and you get a cluster of characters present who is based on anybody of significance in reality should have been more than just names. Even his wife is a bit of a blank slate. You broaden your cast you need to craft them.

Founding Medellin Drug Cartel members Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda), Carlos Lehder (Fredy Yate), and Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejía) get a level of humanization in this that contrasts with reality. Showing how terrible they could be would have changed the tone of the movie, but they were a bit too nice. Dark in nature but nice.

American Made is entertaining but it’s not a satire nor is it a biting criticism of anything. It should’ve been one of those. It could have certainly taken strong shots at any number of things but chose instead to be mildly humorous. I found it strange that I wanted something more pointed out of this movie.

With a mixture of absurdity and charm you find yourself cheering for Barry to somehow pull off a miracle and make it out okay. You could even forgive director Doug Liman and writer Gary Spinelli if they decided to rewrite history for a happy ending. That is how good Cruise is in the part.

American Made is an entertaining and fun Tom Cruise film. Not a bad choice but one that could be a smidge better.