Pure entertainment.

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2019)

I love films like this. Pure, unadulterated excess from start to finish and the fact remains that such films are usually based on true stories. For every ten million people who work dead end jobs, live from payslip to payslip and have modest ambitions, there are guys like Barry Seal.
Spoilers Ahead!
Guys who are offered an opportunity, grab the bull by the horns and end up smuggling drugs and people into the USA whilst smuggling weapons into Nicaragua, all whilst doing deals with the Colombians, evading the DEA and FBI and laundering more money than there is in Silicon Valley. Guys who are in bed with the CIA, Noriega, Escobar and everybody else. Guys who go from a modest salary to monopolising the local bank's main vault just for their money because they've run out of places to store it in their mansion.
Okay, so Hollywood takes liberties with the truth for artistic licence and while this film really takes liberties, having read American Desperado and other books about the Medellin Cartel, Barry Seal's life is well documented and every bit as crazy as the film makes out. With such people, one wonders how the hell they survive day to day but eventually, everyone's luck runs out. Even if you do dodge 30 years in prison to work for the White House.
American Made is gloriously excessive, brilliant fun and wildly entertaining. There's no complicated plot, subtext or layers of meaning to unravel; sometimes, all you need from a film is good old fashioned escapism and an insight into the life of a man who ended up getting community service when he was hoping, nay, praying for prison. For his own good.
8/10