Serious fun

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2018)

Barry Seal is the youngest pilot at TWA in the 70s. He's recruited by the CIA to do risky low altitude flights over Central America and take pictures of Soviet training camps. He succeeds and that helps his handler and himself. Now he's also tasked with delivering payments to Panamanian strongman Noriega in return for intel on the communists. Seal eventually catches the attention of the Medellin cartel who want him to transport cocaine to Miami. He instead suggests and convinces the cartel that dropping of shipments over Louisiana is better. He continues to do well on both fronts. The CIA buys him a huge piece of land in Arkansas including airport and Seal expands the drug transport operation. Once a leftist government is elected in Nicaragua, the CIA in its usual harebrained thinking process decides to repeat its mistakes and arm some guys claiming to be rebels. It's Seal's job to transport the weapons to the Contras. But of course these guys aren't interested in fighting someone else's war. The CIA then decides to train the rebels in the US and again Seal is tasked with the human trafficking. But the Nicaraguans would rather run away in the US than get trained. The cartel wants in on the action so it gets Seal to fly the weapons to Colombia instead.
In the process Seal amasses a huge fortune that he buries in his backyard, fills up his mansion, deposits in banks all over Arkansas. Presumably the rest of his crew also does well so much so that suddenly Mena, the small town in Arkansas, becomes filled with banks. This eventually catches the attention of the FBI, ATF, DEA who arrest him. But the judge, after getting a call from governor Clinton lets him go in exchange for services he can provide to the government. It wants him to produce pictures tying the Central American communists to Colombian drug lords. Again, Seal delivers, but one of the pictures is leaked by someone to the press, a picture that shows him too. Now that Colombians, who have proven that they able to get to people in the US, know that they've been deceived by Seal and will try to get him.
American Made is a strong action light comedy of the rise-and-fall of corrupt guy. Direction, editing, and music follow the Scorsese pattern to some extent. For the most part we are spared the family drama though but still, we get too much Cruise and not enough anyone else, especially the lovely Sarah Wright. Cruise overdoes his usual light-hearted approach; no matter the situation, he's nothing but smiles throughout the entire movie keeping things lighter than they need to be given the serious issues involved. But it's the story (and Wright) that shines, which is based to some extent on reality and the strange turns that Seals life take. Overall, a highly entertaining movie.