American Made Review
American Made is one of the first major offerings of the fall 2017 movie season. It marks the start of that time of year when we can expect to get tons of Oscar caliber movies. This had all the resources to fit that mold. A great director in Doug Liman, the powerhouse that is Tom Cruise, and a story based of an incredible true story.
Although on the surface American Made has everything going for it, at the end of the day it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. It’s an unbelievable story. Something you truly can’t believe happened. You have all you could want to make a great film. Violence, action, drugs, and dirty politics. The thing the movie does well is capture the same type of energy and spirit that films like the Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short have. There’s a lot of real-life news clips and pulpy graphics cut in between the action. In that sense, American Made is very enjoyable. It allows itself to be dramatic and also very comedic. It finds the humor in the lunacy of its story. Not to mention, Tom Cruise is perfectly cast in the role. It calls for tons of charm and he definitely delivers. The material it’s based on is inherently very interesting and it’s easy to get invested in what’s playing out on screen.
The two things that stop American Made from being more than just a fine movie are its pacing and superficiality. In terms of pacing, the 2nd act really drags on. I found myself tuning out for a few minutes here and there because it seemed like the same situation kept getting played out over and over again. The movie almost lost me until the 3rd act started to pick up the pieces. The other problem is that the movie doesn’t have much depth. A story like this has so many different elements that open it up to being an extremely layered and meaningful film. However, Liman chooses not to explore the characters’ struggles. Tom Cruise’s character always seems to evade any punishment. His charm saves him from almost every problem he faces. There’s no focus put on any conflicting emotions or guilt the character had to face. He has a wife and kids and is doing something highly illegal. Yet, he never seems to bat an eye that what he’s doing may be dangerous and morally wrong.
The bottom line is that American Made doesn’t’ open itself up to much conversation. It’s an entertaining couple of hours but it fails to question the situation or offer up any meaningful message. There’s a lot more intimate details that could have been explored. It touches the surface of the true life events without taking a deep dive into the major effects it had on the people involved. 6/10
