★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Sold almost entirely on Tom Cruise’s ability to deliver a cheeky grin, American Made tells the ridiculous true story of Barry Seal, a TWA pilot hired by the CIA to provide reconnaissance footage in the early eighties. His skills are soon noted by the Medellin Cartel, and thus begins an eight-year odyssey of drug smuggling, arms dealing and mountains of cash large enough to shame Scrooge McDuck.
Cruise is back working with director Doug Liman, who – after achieving the impossible by making Hollywood’s ever-youthful hero look genuinely rattled in Edge of Tomorrow – makes a sharp 180-degree turn from their previous team-up. His direction and Gary Spinelli’s script turn the charisma dial up to eleven, giving Cruise that “I’m gonna buzz the tower” smirk we all recognize, but framing it in a frenetic and eye-popping series of increasingly ludicrous capers.
The film is also colour-timed to vibrant excess, but nowhere is the joy and madness more perfectly captured than by a supporting role from Domhnall Gleeson as CIA liaison ‘Schafer’, which proves once and for all that he’s at his best when doing sly, slimy cackling. Caleb Landry Jones also makes a brief but amiably bitter appearance as Seal’s homewrecking brother-in-law.
Occasionally, it is wearing. The whole Wolf of Wall Street vibe is a tad trite (Barry’s growing ambivalence to the jaw-dropping loads of money filling up his house, his preference for reading a book about the rise of Al Capone instead of confronting his problems), and the montages of our lovable pilot enjoying his vast extravagance face the same faults as Scorsese’s epic: we never really feel any ill-effects.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the treatment of Seal’s wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright). As is now seemingly par-for-the course with this sort of film, she’s almost a footnote. Brought out mainly for eyebrow-arching sequences of the couple having sex in the cockpit mid-flight, her disapproval and shock are played only for laughter. It’s an approach that reflects the films near-refusal to tread into anything remotely dark or upsetting: despite the danger constantly dogging Barry (guns, goons and maybe a little guilt), any danger to the audience’s expectations or sensibilities is severely lacking. It’s a frivolous flight of fancy that provides a great vehicle for Cruise’s shtick and Liman’s swift direction, but nothing more than that. It’s fast to please, but faster to fade.
Cruise is back working with director Doug Liman, who – after achieving the impossible by making Hollywood’s ever-youthful hero look genuinely rattled in Edge of Tomorrow – makes a sharp 180-degree turn from their previous team-up. His direction and Gary Spinelli’s script turn the charisma dial up to eleven, giving Cruise that “I’m gonna buzz the tower” smirk we all recognize, but framing it in a frenetic and eye-popping series of increasingly ludicrous capers.
The film is also colour-timed to vibrant excess, but nowhere is the joy and madness more perfectly captured than by a supporting role from Domhnall Gleeson as CIA liaison ‘Schafer’, which proves once and for all that he’s at his best when doing sly, slimy cackling. Caleb Landry Jones also makes a brief but amiably bitter appearance as Seal’s homewrecking brother-in-law.
Occasionally, it is wearing. The whole Wolf of Wall Street vibe is a tad trite (Barry’s growing ambivalence to the jaw-dropping loads of money filling up his house, his preference for reading a book about the rise of Al Capone instead of confronting his problems), and the montages of our lovable pilot enjoying his vast extravagance face the same faults as Scorsese’s epic: we never really feel any ill-effects.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the treatment of Seal’s wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright). As is now seemingly par-for-the course with this sort of film, she’s almost a footnote. Brought out mainly for eyebrow-arching sequences of the couple having sex in the cockpit mid-flight, her disapproval and shock are played only for laughter. It’s an approach that reflects the films near-refusal to tread into anything remotely dark or upsetting: despite the danger constantly dogging Barry (guns, goons and maybe a little guilt), any danger to the audience’s expectations or sensibilities is severely lacking. It’s a frivolous flight of fancy that provides a great vehicle for Cruise’s shtick and Liman’s swift direction, but nothing more than that. It’s fast to please, but faster to fade.
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