Movie: American Made
Who
would have ever thought you could ever get enough of Tom cruise in an Air pilot
uniform? The dash! Is back. This time it isn’t as highflying as Top Gun but a
more subtle, roller coaster comedy crime thriller fictionalized story of Berry
Seal who got into getting in and out drugs, money, weapons between Latin
America and the US in the ’80s. Well Narcos, Breaking Bad and movies on drugs, mafia, and violence have
become somewhat the new favorite flavor.
The
movie begins with a bored TWA pilot in 1978 who plays with the aircraft
switches creating minor turbulence to rattle the passengers to derive some
amusement at his flying job. One of those boring days he finds himself being
recruited by a CIA operative to gather intel by flying over Latin American base
camps and take pictures, which isn’t so easy with his craft being fired on by
the resistance military. On one of these trips is where his life takes a turn smuggling
drugs for Pablo drugs cartel to US soil. It is his intelligence and wit that
makes him successful where others fail and gets away with it. All country
politics have gray shades and so does the USA. He is tossed around in various
missions sandwiched between the Pablo cartel and the CIA doing jobs for both
and making shit load of money in return. He makes tapes of all the things he
has done and under what circumstances. All this has to catch up with him
somewhere in sometime.
The focus of the movie
is more on the politics and back-channel shenanigans of that time. Liman the
director has a particular fascination for the mechanics and realpolitik
of modern spy craft. The movie is infectious. As is Cruise, who puts the entire film on his
shoulders and nicely pulls it through. He pulls through a wife cast in the
movie who is not only about 25 years his junior but also looks more like a
bored supermodel than an innocent woman who never inquires about the many suitcases
full of cash that just keep coming. This is Cruise’s show all the way, and he
delivers with a performance that will take you higher than any airplane ever
could. You will be entertained through out the movie. It isn’t a typical tom
cruiser movie but its damn good story telling and great acting.
