Satirical bio from Doug Liman

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2017)

'American Made' is about a US pilot who managed to work both for the CIA and for the Medelin cartel in Colombia, and later – for the DEA. The CIA received valuable pictures of military bases in the South America and supplied weapons to the local anti-communist groups, while cartel sent drugs to the US. These illegal operations allowed Seal to gain wealth, but it has not guaranteed him long and easy life. One needs to know one thing about the movie. Doug Liman is a director here. A director with recognizable style. He has authored famous actions movies, including 'The Bourne Identity', 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' and 'The Edge of Tomorrow'. Tom Cruise starred the latter one, by the way. Contrary to the previous works in 'American Made' Liman is forced to put up the level and to discuss serious topics in his light manner. This is not the first time, when the director refers to complicated themes ('Fair Game'), but before it looked less persuasive. The joint mostly creates associations with another satirical bio, 'Wolf of Wall-Street' from Scorsese. Well, one can hardly compete with Scorsese in deepness and multidimensional coverage, but still methods used here by Liman very much remind those ones Scorsese used earlier. Of course, a reservation has to be made that some real facts were changed to simplify the plot and to give the movie more artistic attractiveness. Also this movie would hardly become the most favorite one for the audience as it could happen to 'Bourne Identity' and 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'. Nevertheless, this is one of the best movies of the year and a praiseworthy return of Tom Cruise into dramatic acting (after 'The Mummy').