Movie Review American Made

American Made (2017) 

Directed by Doug Liman 

Written by Gary Spinnelli 

Starring Tom Cruise, Domnhall Gleeson, Sarah Wright Olsen, Caleb Landry Jones 

Release Date September 29th, 2017 

American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real life character who was at the center of the drug, guns, and South American contras controversies of the late 70s and 80s. Barry was just an airline pilot for TWA until the CIA caught wind of his trafficking in Cuban cigars. Sensing that Barry has just the kind of moral flexibility that the CIA needs, Agent Shaffer (Domnhall Gleeson) recruits him to run reconnaissance missions in South America, spying on supposed communist outposts.

Barry graduates to the drug trade when he is kidnapped by the Medellin cartel during a stopover in Columbia. They’ve caught on to Barry’s kamikaze missions and figure he’s the man who can help them get their product into America. Barry is eager to agree and becomes the first American welcomed into Pablo Escobar’s inner circle. Meanwhile, the CIA willingly looks the other way on Barry’s drug trade as long he’s willing to fly illegal guns to the Contras in Guatemala for their supposed fight against the Sandinistas.

This is all pretty crazy stuff and, as directed by Doug Liman, the absurdity starts almost from the beginning and never seems to let up. Barry Seal has no business being at the center of the biggest intelligence and drug controversies in American history and yet here he is, thrust onto the stage with only a giant grin and his moral flexibility to keep him from being killed. Indeed, nothing seems to phase Barry, whether it’s the potential of being shot out of the sky, being shot on the ground, getting arrested, or trying to find places to stuff the millions of dollars in cash his new lifestyle has awarded him with.

Much of the story of American Made has the bizarre atmosphere of my favorite American history podcast, The Dollop, with comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds. As I watched the film, I could not help but imagine the extraordinary comic spin Dave and Gareth would put on this story. One scene in particular has the perfect level of insanity that The Dollop lives for. In this scene Barry is attempting to avoid military planes that have been sent to guide him to a military base to arrest him.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal