Now in Theaters
Director: Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Sarah Wright
Movies are transportive by nature. There’s an intentional disconnect from reality. You’re no longer in Theater 3 at the AMC. You’re in a Mos Eisley dive bar, Jake Lamotta’s dressing room, the Bates Motel. For those of us who have never visited New Zealand, there’s no difficulty believing we’re looking at Middle Earth.
I grew up in a tiny Georgia town called Ball Ground. Not much is notable about my town, and I suppose that’s not all bad. While Ball Ground hasn’t produced Senators, it hasn’t produced anyone particularly nefarious. The 1000 or so people calling it home at any given time don’t tend to make waves. The town is reactive to the world around it, rather than the world reacting to it. It makes those who live there more possessive of it. Small towns become the property of those of us who lived there. They’re our streets, our secrets.
About two years ago, Ball Ground, for a brief period, became Mena, Arkansas, cinematic home to the story of Barry Seal, or at least Hollywood’s version of it. Seal (Tom Cruise) wore many hats in real life, and some of them made it into American Made. It’s not a true biopic. It takes liberties, making Seal’s life a bit more convenient for storytelling purposes, but it seems to get the fundamentals correct – the pilot went from flying for TWA to flying for the CIA to flying for the Medellin cartel to flying for the DEA. Seal’s home base through much of the film, after uprooting his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) from their Louisiana home, is in Mena, where the CIA provides him with an airport.
It can be arresting to see such a seemingly private stage from your past emblazoned across a big screen, as was the case with my anonymous town in American Made. At certain points, I was more sightseeing than I was focused on the story. How could I not? This isn’t Manhattan, where just standing in Madison Square Park on a Friday afternoon can feel damn near cinematic. There was Tom Cruise, movie star, standing at a phone booth on a corner where I would sit during parades, a spot I never imagined I’d see on the big screen. Luckily, this isn’t a character-driven period piece or whispery thriller. This is a loud, fun movie, so the details don’t really matter all that much. A little sight-seeing is fine at moments like this, I decided. I was giddy when I saw Nix’s Tires in the background of a scene. For reasons like this, I’m more likely to remember the film than most viewers.
However, that’s not to say the movie on its own isn’t memorable. Cruise is in his element as Seal, a larger-than-life personality whose greatest skill is adaptability. When he runs into legal trouble, he adapts and works for the government. When he runs into Pablo Escobar, he adapts and works for Pablo Escobar. Cruise can over-sell heroism, but he’s really at home in roles like this, where he’s clearly having fun. He’s so effortless in American Made, it makes you immediately wonder just what happened with The Mummy. America’s great leading man absolutely still has it, despite what the Dark Universe suggests.
One possible reason for Cruise’s return to form might be his re-collaboration with Doug Liman, the director responsible for Cruise’s last great film, Edge of Tomorrow Live Die Repeat. While LDR is certainly the better film, its sense of fun hasn’t diminished. American Made hearkens back to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas with its voiceovers and its comic tone during very dark moments. And it’s violence. This film loves its violence. If you’re going to make a film inspired by the life of Barry Seal, you kind of have to. There are many choice introductions in his life, with cameo-style run-ins with many of the biggest political names of his era. It’s like Forrest Gump, but if Forrest supplied the US with cocaine. (Jenny would have appreciated him more, but I digress)
Beyond Cruise, American Made tends to suffer. It features an excellent cast, but most don’t really have much to do. Domnhall Gleeson has fun as Seal’s CIA handler, “Schafer”, but it’s a pretty generic part you’ve seen before. Jayma Mays appears memorably as a prosecutor, but it’s mostly to set up a punchline. Jesse Plemons is a name that gets my attention, but his Mena sheriff had 3 brief scenes, all of which were pretty forgettable. Plemons is a great actor from TV’s new golden age, and he even proved with Chris Kelly’s Other People that he can handle himself on bigger screens. It’s too bad he wasn’t given anything to do.
The one exception is Wright, who manages to more than hold her own as Lucy, Barry’s trophy wife. The character is clearly written to be eye candy – in the film’s defense, that’s in step with their depiction of Barry. You almost wonder if there’s an ex-wife elsewhere in this story, and Barry just adapted to his status as a sex symbol when he saw the way women looked at him in his pilot uniform. Wright manages to do more than just look pretty. She’s someone who can command the screen when Tom Cruise is on it, and that’s no small task. In all her scenes as Barry’s exasperated spouse, she’s strong. One of the few moments the film deviates from the standard is when Barry asks her that tropey line used to reel in doubting significant others, “Do you trust me?” Wright’s delivery of an incredulous “No!” is one of the film’s funnier moments (and there are plenty of funny moments). She’s also responsible for a rather, um, memorable cockpit scene. If American Made advances anyone’s career besides Cruise and Liman, it’s probably Wright.
Last, I should point out that Caleb Landry Jones appears as Lucy’s brother JB, and in a bit of a stock role (nearly every role in this film is pulled off the nearest shelf to the screenwriter’s typewriter, so to speak). He’s good, as good as the role allows him to be, but it’s only worth mentioning as part of the bigger picture that is Jones’ 2017. He’s in 4 films this year, and American Made may be the worst. Get Out (he played Jeremy, the Armitage’s unhinged son) was a massive hit with both critics and audiences. The Florida Project seems to be a massive hit with the former. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri promises to be as well. Jones doesn’t star in any of these films, per se, but he seems to be 2017’s good luck charm, or 2017 is his.
American Made isn’t going to be the talk of award season, and it probably isn’t going to earn a massive amount of money. But it is a return to fun for Tom Cruise, and when Tom Cruise has fun, so do I. Especially when that fun takes place on the streets of my hometown.
Is it Watchlist-Worthy? Yes