TomCruise flies high in breezy ‘AmericanMade’
As the Universal Pictures logo morphs to its 1970s look and disco music starts playing to liven up Jimmy Carter speeches and vintage news footage, we suspect the cocaine-smuggling adventure “AmericanMade” just might be a romp and a half.
Director Doug Liman is no minimalist filmmaker, and “AmericanMade” could be hismaximalist title yet. It skitters, jumps, shivers and boot- scoots without ever standing still. But there’s a sunniness to this film, which has the look of a faded snapshot from an ’ 80s album.
“AmericanMade” looks at a dark period in the country’s history through a golden filter. Drug cartel violence plagued the Southeast, while the first lady urged everyone to “just say no.” The American government was essentially closing its eyes to the illegal import of cocaine while providing guns to rebels fighting the Communist Sandinista army in Central America.
The tale is told as the story of Barry Seal ( Tom Cruise), a real- life pilot, drug smuggler and informant. Before taking up with the CIA and Medellin cartel because he’s got mouths to feed and an elastic moral compass, hotshot flyboy Seal was a commercial pilot for TWA.
From Barry’s perspective, “American Made,” becomes “The Iran- Contra Affair for Dummies,” explained in Cruise’s voiceover as ostensibly captured
with a VHS camera in late 1985 and early ’86 and sometimes supplemented with animation.
In his Louisiana drawl, Cruise’s Barry joshes about how his top- secret CIA gig, taking surveillance photos of the Communist armies, expanded into delivering Soviet AK47s to rebel fighters, and returning with thousands of kilos of cocaine while dodging DEA and FBI aircraft along the way. All the while, Barry was raking in more cash than he could keep track of.
The charismatic Cruise is the star vessel through which this story passes. Supporting actors include Caleb Landry Jones as Barry’s redneck brotherin- law and a smarmy Domhnall Gleeson as his CIA contact “Schafer.” Jesse Plemons is impressive in a small role as a naive small town sheriff.
But this is Barry’s film from start to finish. A lot of creative license has been taken for dramatic effect, but as for the government’s machinations, they feel all too real.
“American Made” has some glorious moments when firing on all cylinders, but it can’t quite sustain that energy throughout. Its models may have been “Goodfellas,” “Blow” and “Scarface,” but it doesn’t sustain the consistency of those films.
While far more roughshod, unquestionably “American Made” has a shaggy- dog charm all its own.