Guns, drugs, money, proxy wars, and the American Dream

Set against the backdrop of the Iran-Contra Affair in the ‘70s and ‘80s, “American Made” follows the story of the late, real-life pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise). After graduating from the air force academy, the gifted Seal makes a living as a pilot in the Trans World Airlines fleet. Yet, even with swoon-worthy uniforms and a generous salary to support his family, the life of a commercial pilot does not satisfy Seal’s need for excitement in his life. Starved of adrenaline, he even goes as far as creating fake “turbulence” during a flight just to get a good laugh.

One day, a CIA agent, Monty Schafer (Domhall Gleeson), contacts him and asks him to perform undercover photographing missions for the CIA, flying over South America in a small plane equipped with powerful cameras. Mission follows mission for Seal; he is soon dispatched to act as a gun and money courier for a Panamanian general. Things get even more out of hand when Seals gets recruited as a transporter by Pablo Escobar and the rising Medellin Cartel, who are  struggling to smuggle their products from Colombia to the States. In the course of the film, one would clearly see Seal’s transition from stable, run-of-the-mill commercial pilot to CIA spy and cartel courier through a series of episodic events expertly performed by Tom Cruise.

Directors Doug Liman and writer Gary Spinelli have crafted a witty and satirical black comedy, turning a twisted government scandal into a funny, entertaining action movie. The bold, bright colors – featuring an abundance of yellow, red, and pink – of each frame set the tone of the film’s comic-book reportage. Liman uses the videotapes that Seal left behind to create a Deadpool-esque narrative, constantly breaking the fourth wall and using the commentary to drive the story forward. This method of displaying narration is not unseen, but it effectively tells the historical context as well as the fiction in an engaging manner. On top of that, the many airplane scenes were actually shot in air with Cruise in the cockpit, who almost always performs his own stunts, making the directing even more natural.
Donning bell bottoms and aviator glasses, Barry Seal’s charming persona oddly makes him a likable anti-hero. As he is thrown into a world of drug-dealing, arms-carrying, and spying, this once ordinary pilot takes on missions one after the other for two simple reasons: excitement and money. Reminiscent of “American Hustle,” a film with similar themes of wealth and the American dream, American Made brilliantly narrates the ludicrous events of politics and covert operations in the 1980s, with Seal at the center of it all.