Review: American Made Brings Cruise Back
- Sep 4, 2017
- 1 min read
Telling the true story of Barry Seal, airline pilot turned drug smuggler and CIA workhorse, American Made puts Tom Cruise back on the main stage following the less than well received Jack Reacher 2 and The Mummy.
It's 1979 and Barry Seal (Cruise) is one of the top pilots for TWA. When he's approached by mysterious individual calling himself Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), he gets offered a new job. Fly a small plane over Communist countries in Central America, take photos of military operations, airfields and everything else, then return said photos to the CIA. But before long he's smuggling cocaine for the Medellín Cartel and running guns into Nicaragua. And things are just getting started.
American Made is like The Wolf Of Wall Street if it had engaging characters, a rapid pace and was a lot more enjoyable. Cruise owns his role, though this shouldn't really surprise anyone, and Gleeson is equally entertaining, despite his smaller role. Much of the films comedy, and there's a decent amount of it, comes from the outlandish situations found within. From being arrested by four very confused law enforcement agencies at the same time to trying to find somewhere to hide his ludicrous amounts of cash, Barry always has a problem to solve.
Perhaps the films biggest triumph is making me enjoy Tom Cruise again. Following two pretty awful performances, American Made gave him another chance and he knocks it out of the park. It's a film as enjoyable as it is interesting and it's pretty good to boot.
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