garishly top class colour grading

Rating: 7/10 (17 September 2017)

Whenever there is any kind of historical, political or cartel speak in a film; my brain turns to soft cheese, and so I cannot rely in great depth the full plot of American Made. I think however this fact makes it even more significant that I LOVED this film. I have watched so many dull and uninventive films recently so I may find myself a bit overzealous in my review but I did have fun! Right from the first moment; the shots where visually interesting and snappy. Barry seals' restless cot pit antics comically establishes the job apathy and dangerous gusto that leads to the characters illicit journey. Tom cruises skilled but naive character becomes swept up in seemingly impossible missions (sorry I just had to) to ship illegal goods over seas with the constant threat of death and incarceration. The film however doesn't take itself too seriously and at some moments becomes a bit ridiculous, which only added to my levels of enjoyment. There where many creative, teetering on surreal, features of this film. The highly saturated shots in the first half made everything look stylised and vibrant and even in a very functional shot there is plenty of lurid feasts. The garish early on shots I think where to mimic the hyper-real grading of 80s video cameras. As the film progressed the colour quality got progressively more modern and I thought this was a very innovative way of presenting the time frame of the film. My favourite section was the over the top montage with a spectacularly excessive classical music remix playing as Barry and his wife are dining out on their wealth in the most ostentatious ways possible. Another very mention-able part of the film was Domhnal Gleeson and his charming, weaselly performance as the CIA agent trying to entangle Seal in the films daring operations. To be fair to Seal if Gleeson had approached me with those levels of biting Charisma I probably would have been shipping Crack and Weaponry to Miami myself.