Tom Cruise greater than makes up for his Mummy misfire earlier this summer time with American Made, a rollicking, high-flying, sort-of-true journey that provides the toothsome star his better part in years. He stars as Barry Seal, a bored TWA pilot who, in 1978, is illegally transporting small portions of Cuban cigars into the U.S. to earn some extra cash. His little contraband enterprise beneficial properties the eye of CIA operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson, gleefully crafty), who quickly recruits Seal to fly surveillance missions over Central America that embody intel-for-cash visits with Panamanian army dictator Manuel Noriega. The assignments turn out to be more and more harmful and his aerial derring-do attracts another person’s discover: Medellín drug-cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejia), who needs Seal to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. for him, and is keen to pay 2000 dollars for each kilo he delivers. With a spouse (Sarah Wright Olsen) and rising household to assist, Seal reluctantly agrees.

“I tend to look before I leap,” Seal acknowledges at one level. “Maybe I should have asked more questions.” Yeah, he ought to have, as a result of Seal can’t even think about the convoluted escapades he’ll turn out to be concerned in, which later embody secretly delivering AK-47s from the U.S. authorities to contra rebels in Nicaragua, and bringing again a few of these fighters to coach in America. At one level, he’s working for the CIA, the DEA, and the Medellín cartel . While Seal, who’s swimming in cash (a lot in order that he buries hundreds of thousands in his yard in rural Mena, AR), is ready to play the assorted sides towards each other for a time, his excessive life comes crashing down when his duplicitous actions turn out to be clear and he has no place to cover.

American Made is introduced as a freewheeling, comedian misadventure—albeit one with some very shady underpinnings—by director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow), who clearly needs viewers to see Seal as a rascally antihero. Yet the actual Seal was something however heroic: He was probably the most infamous drug smugglers in U.S. historical past. Fortunately for Liman, Cruise is at his boyish finest right here, flashing his winsome smile to nice impact and imbuing Seal with a youthful gusto that’s exhausting to withstand. Even when he’s finishing up his dirtiest schemes, we root for him as a consequence of Cruise’s devilish attraction and fascinating swagger. It additionally helps that the movie is very loosely based mostly on Seal’s life and alters or omits key components, similar to two of his three marriages and the extent and impression within the U.S. of his huge drug dealings. Also, Cruise seems to be nothing like Seal, who was nicknamed “the Fat Man” as a consequence of his almost 300-pound body.

American Made isn’t a biopic. It’s “a fun lie based on a true story,” as Liman says within the film’s official press supplies. The result’s an undeniably entertaining caper full of zany twists and turns which are all of the extra fascinating as a result of they’re (considerably) rooted in actual fact. If you need a extra reasonable tackle Seal’s life, try Double-Crossed from 1991, which stars Dennis Hopper as Seal. But in case you’re simply on the lookout for rowdy, escapist leisure, American Made is made-to-order.