American Made

Directed by: Doug Liman

Starring: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright

Rated: R

Runtime: 115 minutes

Cruisin’ for a Snoozin’

Can the freeze frame and voiceover combo just go ahead and die as a screenwriting mechanic? The trailer for “American Made” used it, but I hoped against hope that it wasn’t in the film. Not only was it in the film, there’s an abundance of it. You would think that something becoming a meme would rule out its non-ironic use in just about everything except comedies, but no. “American Made” went with it.

There are thousands of these out there. “American Made” lost many points for doing this.

“American Made” tells the story of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a TWA pilot who takes a reconnaissance position for the CIA. When that job isn’t paying the bills, he takes the next logical step and sets up a massive cartel delivery service complete with money laundering, weapons dealing and drug smuggling. He makes all the money. When the government takes notice, they use Seal’s cartel for their purposes.

There are exactly two memorable things about this film, and I’ve already mentioned one of them. Freeze frames and voiceover aside, Tom Cruise does a great job as Barry Seal. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but “American Made” rides solely on the coattails of Cruise’s star power and great performance. This is surprising, especially given that Cruise has only made two good films in the last 7 years (“Edge of Tomorrow” and “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”).

Now, this does imply that I think “American Made” is a good film, and I’m not so sure I’d go that far. Outside of Cruise’s performance, “American Made” is a dreadfully forgettable movie. Even though I’d never heard of Barry Seal, nothing that happens is all that surprising. The plot beats play out pretty much exactly like you expect, and the film seems more concerned with fitting in all the information it wants to convey than actually going anywhere meaningful with that information.

For example, it certainly seems like one of the central themes of “American Made” was supposed to be that Barry is essentially a good person whose hand was forced because he wanted to support his family. Basically, Barry would answer the age-old question of whether or not you would steal bread to feed your family with a resounding yes.

However, this is flawed reasoning. The fundamental nature of that question changes when stealing bread becomes smuggling drugs and indirectly leading millions of Americans to become addicted to cocaine. A quasi-intellectual exploration of Barry’s morality holds no weight when there’s no argument to be made for him being a good man. In short, if there’s cocaine involved, you’ve forfeited your moral high ground. That’s a good rule of thumb to live by.

All of that to say, it is nice to see Tom Cruise return to form. I’m excited to see where he goes from here. If this is a sign that he’ll be taking on more original projects instead of sequels and reboots, that’s something I can get behind. With better films than “American Made” as a foundation, Tom Cruise is sure to shine again.

Due to its cheesy writing, conventionality and lack of memorability, I can’t recommend “American Made” to anyone except the biggest fans of Tom Cruise. Stay home and look at freeze frame memes instead.

Check out the rest of my reviews here.