Fast-paced, Funny, and Entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (29 September 2017)

American Made feels like something we've all seen before, but it plays out with so much style and charm that it remains wildly entertaining the whole way. Cruise is well-suited for the role, and he turns in arguably his best performance of the decade. The rest of the decently large cast ranges from competent to very good, but it's really only Cruise that gets the proper screen time and character depth to carry the movie, and he does very well.
Doug Liman directs the movie in his usual fast-paced style, but with dealings (drug, arms, and otherwise) taking place of the prototypical action/fight scenes. The intensity of this film comes from Cruise's Barry Seal, and the situations he manages to find himself in, rather than your standard action fare. The movie mixes comedy with intensity, as Seal finds himself in increasingly richer as he takes on more dangerous scenarios. Liman does very well with this style, and it gives the movie an interesting aesthetic - almost like The Wolf of Wall Street if directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
For me, this is one of the biggest surprises of the year. I personally thought the trailers made this film look incredibly generic, like a typical action rehash. What we get instead is a wholly entertaining political action/comedy that is simply super fun to watch.