By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Lola Kirke, Mauricio Mejía, Alejandro Edda, Caleb Landry Jones and Jesse Plemons.
Rating: Very Good.
Doug Liman, director of “The Bourne Identity”, “Edge of Tomorrow” and “The Wall” brings “American Made”, which makes his second collaboration with Tom Cruise and again he delivered very interesting results.
Based on true events, the movie centers in Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) a pilot for the airline TWA that is contacted by CIA Agent Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson).
Schafer will convince Seal to work for him as an operative on taking pictures from a small plane in Central America.
In one of his missions he is being picked up by members of the Medellin Cartel and he will meet Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda) and eventually Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejía).
Ochoa makes with Seal a proposition deal of working for the Cartel in smuggling cocaine in the United States.
This is the story of a man who lived a double life and became one of the most iconic figures during the late 70´s and 80´s.
Doug Liman created again a really good movie with spectacular action sequences and of course he directed Tom Cruise in a superb way.
The screenplay written by Gary Spinelli was very original and the amount of research he made on Barry Seal is notorious in this film. He wrote the screenplay with a lot of detail and for movies like this one the more detail you can get the more realistic.
The aesthetics of the film were fantastic and I loved the way how Liman recreated the 80`s in this film. In some of this films that have iconic figures this has been a problem and you only see the look on the characters but not in the look of the film itself and this one has it.
The timing of the film is really good and I also loved the fact that the filmmakers stick on the basics of Barry Seal since there is a lot of story to cover up.
The comedy was really good in this movie and Tom Cruise had very good moments that he is funny and shows his wit and charisma that has been his trademark in most of his movies.
I haven´t seen a performance of Tom Cruise that I enjoyed so much like I did in “American Made”. He played Seal in a convincing way and I was missing this from Tom Cruise who has delivered memorable performances in movies like “Born on the Fourth of July”, ”Jerry Maguire” “Rain Man”, making him one of the most iconic figures in Hollywood.
The action sequences that happen in this film, specially the one that occurs when Seal is landing a plane filled with tons of cocaine is really good and at the same time very funny.
The chemistry between Liman and Cruise again works and hopefully we can see more movies with this two in the future.
“Ameican Made” is a really fun movie and I highly recommend it for Doug Liman´s directing, Gary Spinnelli´s screenplay and the performances of the cast, especially Tom Cruise.