American Made

[Saul Goodman]

It’s hard not to compare American Made to Narcos. Wagner Moura is so firmly established in my mind as Pablo Escobar that I found it jarring to see another one. Like Narcos, it spends much of its running time critiquing, if not downright mocking, Reagan-era foreign policy. Unlike Narcos, we see very little of the cartel’s violence: it’s introduced in a tongue-in-cheek manner as “Pablo Escobar’s management style.” We don’t even actually see the death you should be expecting if you’re familiar with the subject of the film. Approximately three fourths of the way through the violence appears with a bang, but it’s not graphic and such spectacle isn’t revisited.  Also unlike Narcos, the film spends little to no time examining its prototanist’s motives. Somewhat understandable given this is a feature film and Narcos has multiple episodes to dive into the motivations and backgrounds of Javi Pena and Steve Murphy, but Barry Seal’s motivations and backstory get no more than passing treatment, almost an afterthought. Evidently Barry has a bit of a risk-seeking streak in him, and he’s not being paid enough. That’s it. That’s more than enough to recruit the film’s Barry Seal to start flying for the CIA buzzing compounds full of armed insurgents and dodging law enforcement aircraft.

There’s also a bit of controversy overhanging the film, given the crash of an Aerostar in Colombia while the production was based there. The crash didn’t occur during the actual filming and Tom Cruise was not aboard, but a wrongful death lawsuit has been filed alleging the director and Cruise were essentially adrenaline-addled psychos pushing for ever more dangerous stunts for their airplane porno. I didn’t see much to support that in the final cut. Maybe they left the hairy stuff out to avoid adding weight to the allegations in the lawsuit (although that’s inconsistent with the lawsuit’s claims that they were trying to make the most action-packed movie they could). There is one scene where Cruise’s Aerostar nudges wingtips with a Bonanza in flight, which I seriously doubt was actually filmed in real life. There was also Cruise’s forced landing shown in all the trailers, which again I seriously doubt was actually filmed in a real life neighborhood. Some reviewers have mentioned the lawsuit, others haven’t, but there’s no real way to know what actually happened based on one-sided pleadings. If it keeps you from enjoying the film knowing what happened when it was being made, I thought I should mention it.

With all that said, I liked the film and enjoyed it. I just don’t know how rewatchable it’s going to be. Tom Cruise gives his usual likable Tom Cruise performance. Some of the aviation action is thrilling, although I was left wondering whether there were more escapades left out: Did Seal ever run low on fuel and have to improvise? Did he ever get lost? As far as the film is concerned, he’s a perfect pilot. As long as you go in to see it expecting a fun, fast-moving version of the Barry Seal Wikipedia entry, and not an in-depth character study or even much of a drama (it’s more of a series of action scenes), you’ll probably enjoy it.