Directed by:
Doug LimanScreenplay:
Gary SpinelliCinematography:
César CharloneComposer:
Christophe BeckCast:
Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Alejandro Edda, Jayma Mays, Connor Trinneer, E. Roger Mitchell, Sharon Conley (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
Based on an incredible true story of the CIA's biggest secret, American Made will remind you: It's not a crime if you're doing it for the good guys. Doug Liman directs this US crime thriller based on true events. Tom Cruise stars as Barry Seal, a pilot for Trans World Airlines who became a drug smuggler for the Colombian Medellin cartel in the 1980s. After being recruited by the notorious drug lords to move shipments of cocaine from Columbia to an airbase in Mena, Arkansas, Seal also becomes involved with the CIA and DEA who are looking for him to provide information on the Columbian's activities while also secretly transporting weapons into South America for them. However, with the cartel continuing to increase their shipments to the US, it's not long before events begin to spiral out of control. (Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (17)
Barry Seal is Tom Cruise's one man show. Totally. Actually, there's nothing here but Tom Cruise in a role that was tailor-made for him. As a likeable bastard who can work for three deadly organizations at the same time and still make a damn good living at it, he's downright brilliant. His Barry is an amoral bastard, but with such enormous charm that you'll be rooting for him even as he muddies the waters with Colombian cartel bosses, delivers weapons to Central American paramilitary organizations, and buries his money in suitcases in the backyard. Barry has style, and thanks to Doug Liman and his brisk direction, his adventures are quite watchable. And it's only at the end that you realise that it's actually playing it too safe, that Barry's sort of getting away with everything, lacking a significant antagonist, conflict or even problem, and that it's not actually very interesting. Cruise fans will probably enjoy it to the max, others will be treated to a stylish, broadly entertaining but more or less pointless film.
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Clever and funny. This will stay around for a while. Cruise and Liman began to hit it off together on the Edge of Tomorrow and the chemistry continues in this free biography of smuggler, Barry Seal. Great comedy style, tongue-in-cheek to damning reminder of the insensitivity of the government. Perfect late 70s atmosphere, great music and two hours of good, honest fun.
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American Made is a funny, fast-paced and, thanks mainly to the excellent Tom Cruise, a really cool chill-out movie that does
not try to be dramatic. Which surprises me, because had its satire been a little more piercing, it could have reached the
heights of Martin Scorsese.
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A slick, incredibly entertaining ride. What else would you expect from Doug Liman, the director who teamed up with Tom Cruise to deliver the brilliant time-loop sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow? Barry Seal is the epitome of an all-American wild card. And I say “American” very deliberately—this kind of epic, larger-than-life story could only come out of the U.S. The beauty here lies in the simplicity: it’s about a guy who realizes, well into adulthood, that his life is painfully boring. With a little twist of fate, he flips his world upside down, without a second thought. His naivety leads to such absurd situations that you’ll be shaking your head, laughing, and wondering if someone could really live a life this outrageous. But with a solid script and dynamic editing, this film is pure fun from start to finish—even if you’re just looking for a total escape.
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American Made is a very straightforward crime comedy without any major stumbling blocks and it makes no effort to face us with any difficult moral dilemmas. It conspicuously imitates the style of Scorsese’s films (pop songs, a narrator intervening in the story and determining what we see and how we see it, attention-grabbing camerawork and editing) and cashes in on the popularity of the TV series Narcos, so it comes across as unoriginal and predictable, but thanks to the smooth (albeit slightly mechanical) narrative and Cruise’s charisma, it is entertaining from start to finish. The position of the main protagonist is unusual (for a Hollywood movie), as he lets himself be dragged along by circumstances and merely accepts outside offers and follows orders dictated to him through almost the entire film. He can demonstrate his ingenuity only in the way he carries out deliveries of certain goods, not in what he actually does. It would almost be possible to interpret him as the embodiment of American pragmatism, the ability to adapt to the given situation and make the most of it for himself, but we know too much about him (compared to the other characters, who are really only types) to perceive him in such an impersonal way, and relatively strong emphasis is placed on the family storyline (which, however, the film handles much more carelessly than The Wolf of Wall Street, for example – you will probably care as little about the protagonist’s wife and children as you did for Barry). Of the films that “comfort” us with the fact that people may be bad, but their governments are worse (War Dogs, American Hustle), this one gets bonus points in my eyes for taking the procedural side of things into greater consideration and for not pretending to be anything better. It’s simply light summer macho entertainment that does everything possible to keep the viewer from getting bored for even a second and, unlike Atomic Blonde and The Hitman’s Bodyguard, it does that very well. 70%
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