Doug Liman joins hand with Tom Cruise for the second time after Edge of Tomorrow to relate the tale of Barry Seal, a TWA pilot turned lawbreaker who garnered enormous wealth and attention through smuggling!
The makers knew how to grab your attention at the word go by toying with your usual expectations; intercepting Universal Studio's title card with a straight jump inside the story that is! The format was much alike the protagonist who's tired of the routine and always wanting for thrill or fun. Coupled with the hunger for money to support his family, he ventured into criminal activities.
Overall, American Made was engaging from start to finish. There were some real air flight sequences. Most of the conflicts for the protagonist were clearly laid out, especially the ones concerning JB (Caleb Landry Jones) and legal authorities. The way Barry's assassination was portrayed onscreen, JB's car exploding, multiple types of police investigations, Barry taking precautions keeping in mind a bomb might go off, interacting with his wife, trying his best to fly plane in a short runaway and running out of place to store money were interesting.
The biggest negative would be the cinematography style! It is understandable that the filmmakers wanted to bring the documentary-esque aura to the motion picture, but the shaky, handheld, zoomed in and out digital camcorder quality was extremely distracting! Secondly, the way the protagonist was sent into the route of new equilibrium moments after the call to adventure arrived was not strong enough a reason. Funny enough, these two aspects were the similar problems in Edge of Tomorrow as well. Who is Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) or what are his motivations? I guess we'll never figure out. At the very least of compensation, Barry Seal, the hero of our story admitted that he should have asked more questions before diving into action.
Furthermore, the dark comedy genre really didn't work! Very, very rarely did a chuckle came by. For example, the sequence featuring simultaneous arrest attempts by the State Police, DEA, FBI and ATF was hilarious! The focus of the storytelling should have been tuned too. In a single narration, the screenplay sped through the process of Barry Seal becoming a tycoon. Yet, it spent so much of unnecessary time to narrate the boring politics surrounding Sandinista, Nicaragua and Contras that the film would have been miles better without! By right, the reverse is what the screenwriter Gary Spinelli should have done! Audiences couldn't be bothered by all these technobabble and expositions! Even with the extended duration for all these explanations, it still remained muddled and nebulous, despite being repeated twice at an instance!
Another issue arose from the main character's depiction. Tom Cruise as Barry Seal does get pummeled by challenges, but he walks away scot free each and every time through lucky coincidences, like flying parallelly with a Shell's helicopter during cocaine delivery. The storytelling didn't dig deep into his struggles. We don't see the character having a hard time. Apart from the writing, this was also caused by Tom Cruise's performance. His unvaried emotions in acting gave us the feeling that he'll eventually survive at the end. Maybe the unserious implications suited the tone of the picture. Barry Seal is also a person who never learns by his mistake, and this could be part of his character growth which lead him to the fate he ended up with. These were the reasons why he, as a character had a shortcoming arc without much development.
Although a major complaint was made on the camerawork earlier, there were some shots done to excellence, such as the plane across clouds and rain and the unbroken long take before landing! Portions like henchmen falling asleep in a live flight were pretentious tensions that did not add any value to the main story. 'Shoot the Gringo' prank would only make sense if Jorge had it planned prior with the shooters. If the Medellín Cartel were able to know about JB's small time arrest, how could they have not known Seal was brought into custody too?