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Created Oct 22, 2017 04:58PM PST • Edited Jun 16, 2019 02:51AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   The wages of sin are very good for Tom Cruise for a very long time in American Made, a fanciful recounting of one smuggler’s blues during the 1980s cocaine explosion. It’s a very satisfying movie, with a modicum of truth, a surfeit of crazed sexiness, and a satisfactory ending when the wages of sin get put paid.

   King Cruise is made for movies like American Made: blockbusters about an all-American guy married to a blonde hottie twenty years his junior. Bored as an airline pilot, he falls into cocaine smuggling – from Columbia to the southern U.S. of A. for Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel. Soon he’s rolling in the dough, leading to an epic downfall. The trailer tells as much, but it’s charismatic as hell when Cruise acts it out.

   American Made eagerly pins the smuggler’s journey on the CIA and Col. Oliver North, in what amounts to a left-wing fever dream. So what if most or all of that is a bunch of lies. Director Doug Liman’s highly surreal picture makes for a well-rounded tale of avarice, greased by perverted patriotism. Plus, Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood loves slutty movies like this. Imagine the casting session for the blonde hottie…

   Not surprisingly, American Made isn’t tearing it up at the box office. Americans don’t favor movies that make America look bad, especially those that are mostly bullshit. Even Tom Cruise can’t overcome that.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Tom Cruise is making a habit of walking out of custody after grandly declaring to a bunch of law enforcement officers that he’s going to do so. His Barry Seal does it here and his Jack Reacher did it in last year’s Jack Reacher 2. Being Tom Cruise, the type-cast repetition doesn’t embarrass him in the least.

   Weak Supporting Cast

   • Sarah Wright is sweetly sexy as his blonde hottie wife.
   • Domhnall Gleeson underwhelms as his CIA handler.
   • Alejandro Edda & Mauicio Mejia are bland as Medellín kingpins Jorge Ochoa & Pablo Escobar.
   • Jesse Plemons isn’t given much to work with as an Arkansas Sheriff.
   • Caleb Landry Jones shines as a southern dipshit. He’s not as scary good as he was in Get Out, but he’s a scary good actor, that’s for sure.
   • Impersonators: Connor Trinneer poorly impersonates George H.W. Bush, just as Robert P. Farrior kinda fails as Oliver North. Ditto the guy playing Noriega.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Doug Liman’s film pulses with crazed energy, giving it much more charm than it deserves, especially because it trades heavily on being a biopic. Liman apparently disclaimed its biopic status, as noted in my Reality commentary below, but that gets lost in the hurricane wind of his film’s supposed authenticity. Basically, Liman is as much a conman as the sleazy smuggler his film profiles.

    American Made brings three other films to mind, each superior to this one.

    • Goodfellas in terms of profiling a real-life major criminal enterprise
    • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in terms of a likable criminal
    • The Infiltrator in terms of another conflicted participant in the 1980s cocaine explosion.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.8

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

    Circumstantially, American Made is highly surreal. Or in French, it’s mostly bullshit. Doug Liman describes his movie as “a fun lie based on a true story,” per Wikipedia. History vs. Hollywood has more.

    Apparently, The Infiltrator – a better movie – also features Barry Seal, though he didn’t register with me.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0