Film Review: American Made

"Haven't You Ever Wanted Something More Barry? You Should Be Serving Your Country..."

Failing rather spectacularly this year in both critical and financial means with The Mummy, a reboot of the iconic horror character which was meant to act as a catalyst for the success of the so-called "Dark Universe" franchise, Tom Cruise returns to the big-screen oh so quickly with American Made, a biographical drama based on the life of airline pilot turned drug smuggler, Barry Seal, and a movie directed by the steady hands of Doug Liman, a filmmaker who has garnered previous plaudits for releases such as the Tom Cruise-led Edge of Tomorrow alongside the likes of The Bourne Identity, and a director who knows how to shoot a decent action set piece when needs be. In the case of American Made, Liman takes the reigns of a flashy and surprisingly entertaining crime drama, one which revels in the excesses and absurdity of the core narrative and a movie which is bolstered primarily by a Tom Cruise on top of his game. If The Mummy showcased a Tom Cruise performance which was the definition of phoned in, then American Made harks back to the charismatic, charm-ridden Cruise Hollywood is used to and boy, is it a welcome return. 

For those avid Netflix fans, the character of Barry Seal is a familiar sight in the land of Narcos, and whilst the Escobar-focused on demand series only briefly expanded the life of one of the more low-key players in the 20th century drug trade, American Made takes no time whatsoever in getting straight to the action, with the movie dropping the character of Seal ever so swiftly into the shady doings of the CIA, the DEA and of course, the infamous Medellin Cartel, and much like the previous Liman/Cruise collaboration, Edge of Tomorrow, American Made is a movie which revels in a joyously crafted flashy sensibility which doesn't take any chance whatsoever to offer any real substance to both characterisation or any sense of real substantial emotional involvement, but heck, it's undoubtedly a lot of fun. American Made is the type of movie Cruise could only hope for after the mediocrity of The Mummy, and whilst it is unlikely to crack any person's top film list for the year, Liman's latest flies in one ear and zooms out the other and reminds the audience why many loved an a-typical Cruise performance the first time around. 

Overall Score: 7/10