American Mess

Rating: 1/10 (6 October 2017)

It's naive to expect truth from 'based-on-true-story' projects, but narrative content should be required ingredient. 'American Made' plays like a movie trailer throughout its two-hour length, stirring together the standard motifs of 1980s cocaine smuggling sagas like 'Blow'. The story boils down to a procession of mustachioed Colombian cartel bosses, DEA agents and drug-courier aviators hauling cocaine, firearms and bags of cash around jungle landing strips, hotel lobbies and small town banks in the ugly fashions of the day.
Tom Cruise portrays pilot protagonist Barry Seal as an easygoing coke-smuggling, gun-running, Caddy-driving adventurer. His self-deprecating charm and aerial dare-devilry are supposed to hold the film together, but both charisma and exploits seem stale. After the CIA persuade Seal to aid their anti-communist follies in Central America, he fends off the various suspicions and demands of his dumb blonde wife, crooked associates and two-faced CIA handlers. The script never develops any of these stock characters as the story unfolds with the depth of a music video. At the conclusion, there's little reason to believe a word of it, or care what happens to any of the participants.