God bless the USA.

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2017)

Based on a true story covering the Carter years to the Reagan/Bush administration. Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) is a TWA pilot who in '78 supplements his income with a pickup and delivery service bringing in Cuban cigars via a Canadian connection. He catches the eye of the CIA who enlist him to take recce photos for them out of a shell corp., flying a hot twin-engine plane. Sure enough, he ends up supplementing his income again, heavier drugs this time, a regular trifecta of arms, drugs and currency on the behest of the CIA. He's "protected" by a crucifix dangling from his dash.
He'd do better to heed (Sirach 9:13) "Keep thee far from the man that hath power to kill; so shalt thou not doubt the fear of death: and if thou come unto him, make no fault, lest he take away thy life presently: remember that thou goest in the midst of snares, and that thou walkest upon the battlements of the city." If he gets on the wrong side of some drug pooh bah, it's the final curtain, and prison would make him a sitting duck. His brother-in-law JB (Caleb Landry Jones) is not trusted by the cartel to keep silence once he learns too much. Seal flies an intricate pattern to avoid getting snared by law enforcement, per CIA intel. And in the end he fears to start is car—kaboom!
"American Made" opens at the Baton Rouge airport with a loudspeaker advising that a good place for history buffs is Louisiana. The average Joe will know that Thomas Jefferson wrote all men are created equal and that a later civil rights movement capitalized on the neglected equality of the Negro. History buffs, how­ever, familiar with the Louisiana debates will be aware that "Negro equality" never came up when Congress went over the slavery issue upon admitting Louisiana to the Union. People back then just didn't think in those terms. The Declaration of Independence was but an experiment in whether shop­keepers could run the government.
Sacred history addresses the other in the uniquely favored Noah who escaped a world-killing deluge, with his family. Seal was favored by the CIA and he packed off his family to settle in Mena, Arkansas and raise horses. (Gen. 9:18) "And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan." From Shem came the Semites, here via a British/American connection represented by Barry. Japheth (meaning enlarged—they settled every­where) are the Central Americans in this movie. Ham (the father of Canaan) through his son Cush (means black, settled in Africa) is represented in the movie by JB who doesn't get the family wealth but is given menial work. Ham's offspring were given a sentence of servitude on account of bringing into the post-flood world the wicked thoughts and violent deeds that got the old one drowned. JB also has a flourishing history of bad language and a record of two felonies. He is not a sympathetic character.
The actual prophesy is (Gen. 9 :27) "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." The Contras had a training camp on Barry's land, i.e. dwelling in the tents of Shem. The blacks in the movie served: a black DEA agent doing the drudge work following a money trail, and two colored boys offering parking of a hot plane in their yard, and a bike for a get­away. Lucy Seal (Sarah Wright), wife of Barry, escaped DEA confiscation with only what jewelry and fur coat she wore on her body. Noah escaped the judgment of being a drunken bum only by virtue of the covering his two sons Shem and Japheth gave him, Ham having mocked his father's nakedness, whence the judgment against Ham's offspring.
The above was for the benefit of the history buffs; it might sail over the heads of everyone else—sorry. What is explicitly explained, though, is the Contra-weapons-drugs-money-Sandinista (illegal) connection, with a hint of an Iran-Contra scandal to come, and a mention of the CIA trafficking drugs during the Vietnam fiasco. America is portrayed as both a land of opportunity as well as a land of some illegal shenanigans, though, surprisingly a relatively benign form of Negro slavery as justified by a Christian country is brushed aside by some historical bench­marks. The Confederate battle flag is proudly displayed in the South in the movie. The smuggled Cuban smokes is not condemned—people need their cigars. Virginia—where Robert E. Lee hails from—only imported slaves from the Caribbean—not from the brutal African trade—and then only to harvest their tobacco when there weren't enough laborers otherwise.
This movie portrays America with its warts of drug/arms trafficking, but it doesn't get all bent out of shape over the past slavery issue. I was of draft eligible age during the Vietnam War and didn't like what was going on with us there, so I have particular objections to what the CIA continued to do, as portrayed here. Never­the­less, I figured that if Barry could remain patriotic till his dying breath, after being used by his government, I can feel patriotic, too. This might be just me, a creature of contradictions at times, but the movie has the potential of inspiring good feelings for a flawed country. The LA history lesson is a bit obscure, except for history buffs, so I figure it's just history reasserting itself through an artist's open imagination, after being twisted by contemporary politics.
The plot was easy to follow. The American "good guys" were easy to root for even when they were technically on the wrong side of the law. Oh, well, some movies succeed despite inherit contradictions. Tom Cruise did well in his part of a regular guy getting in too deep. There were some great flight scenes.