Tom switches off the Cruise control
AMERICAN MADE
Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright Olsen Fly the unfriendly skies.
FOR someone who seems to have spent his long screen career cultivating a persona as a winner or a success story, Tom Cruise has a lot of flawed and faulty individuals on his resume.
Sure, the Cruise characters who are self-centred, cowardly or just plain weird inevitably straighten up and fly right.
But there’s something genuinely interesting about seeing a handsome, charismatic type like him push his luck, fail to live up to expectations or make a rash of bad decisions.
Cruise gets to do all of the above in American Made, and it’s the contrast between the star’s trademark cocky, controlled presence and his character’s risky, reckless, greedy and foolhardy actions that give this stranger-thanfiction true story an additional kick.
That’s not to downplay the glib, cheeky tone of Gary Spinelli’s screenplay and especially the freewheeling energy of Doug Liman’s direction, both of which keep the engagement and entertainment levels high.
But whether it’s by design or not, American Made doesn’t delve too deeply in the murkier aspects of its story, undercutting its potential impact as a result.
It’s absolutely not a bad movie. But it regularly feels like it’s on the verge of being a better one — sharper, smarter, maybe even crazier.
Having said that, the story of Barry Seal, played by Cruise, is pretty crazy as it stands.
A commercial pilot flying dull routes at the tail end of the 1970s, Seal amuses himself by faking turbulence and smuggling cigars.
It’s the latter sideline that catches the attention of CIA agent Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson, impishly enjoying his character’s authority), who sees Seal’s piloting skills and moral flexibility as a winning combination.
He recruits Seal for surveillance work over the hot spots of Central America, a gig that soon expands into running guns and money the US government can’t officially deliver.
And while Seal’s in that part of the world, he takes on a side job: smuggling cocaine back into America for a trio of entrepreneurs (you may have heard of one of them — Pablo Escobar).
And as the 1980s gets underway, there’s more demand for Seal’s services from both his employers than he could ever have imagined. So much demand, in fact, that he’s wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
Surely nothing could go wrong. Actually, almost everything went wrong.
There’ll be the odd scene or sequence in American Made that arrestingly depicts the thrill in flouting legal or ethical standards or the sick feeling of suddenly being way out of one’s depth.
And Cruise frequently does a smashing job of showing how Seal’s cunning and bravado sometimes curdles into desperation and fear. (He also subtly, cleverly conveys that Seal isn’t necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed.)
It’s times like these, when the movie takes a more grassroots approach to telling its larger-than-life tale, that it really connects.
Often, however, American Made makes big, bold and obvious statements about corruption and greed that already feel all too familiar.