8 Years Later, Tom Cruise's Exhilarating Crime Thriller Deserves Your Attention

8 Years Later, Tom Cruise's Exhilarating Crime Thriller Deserves Your Attention Tom Cruise as Barry Seal in American MadeImage via Universal Pictures By  Sam Barsanti Published 24 minutes ago Sam Barsanti has written about pop-culture for 10 years, and his work has appeared at The A.V. Club, Primetimer, IGN, and Collider. He has also contributed to the popular daily Hustle newsletter, which covers tech and startup news. He'll happily talk to anyone about comic book movies (he thinks the MCU peaked with Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and giant robots (he thinks some of the Transformers movies are good), and he canonically exists in The CW's "Arrowverse" series of superhero shows. Sam is also a published poet and horror writer, and his fiction work has appeared on The No Sleep Podcast.   Sign in to your Collider account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

These days, especially since the revitalization of the Mission: Impossible franchise with Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise tends to play the same kind of guy in every movie: A pathologically competent overachiever with the inner monologue of a shark who is, generally, on the side of the angels. It’s rare to see him step out from his apparent comfort zone playing Ethan Hunt and guys just like Ethan Hunt, but it’s often pretty compelling when he does — just look at Edge of Tomorrow, where he’s playing a version of his usual persona who is a total jerk. Cruise also played against type in another film from Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman, American Made, and it’s now a streaming hit.

American Made is currently the top movie on Paramount+, according to FlixPatrol, which is a nice reversal of fortune for a movie that somewhat flew under the radar upon its initial release in 2017 (that’s sort of a pun if you know what American Made is about). It made $134 million on a $50 million budget, which is low for a Cruise movie, though it was received well by critics and has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Finally, though, people are getting on board with what is ultimately a rather dark and cynical dramedy.

What Is ‘American Made’ About?

Image via Universal Pictures

Loosely based on the life of a man named Barry Seal, Cruise plays a pilot in 1978 who smuggles Cuban cigars into the United States and gets recruited by the CIA to fly missions over South America in a spy plane. The CIA eventually starts having him transport guns to the Nicaraguan Contras, and he also starts smuggling drugs into the U.S. for Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, all so he can get richer and richer. Of course, he also enjoys the dangerous thrill of all the double-dealing and sneaking around.

Put simply, Tom Cruise isn’t playing a Tom Cruise-type. He’s greedy and opportunistic, and things don’t work out for him the way that they do in nearly every other Tom Cruise movie (you can find out what happened to the real Barry Seal with a quick google). That alone gives it a fairly unique spot in the modern Tom Cruise canon, which makes it worth a look. American Made also gets into the larger impact of the CIA’s intrusions into South America, which is a scandal that people don’t think about too often these days, even though the United States should’ve learned from it a little better than it did.

But what matters is that this is an under-appreciated Tom Cruise movie in which he plays someone who is not a great guy, which is unusual! There was a time when Tom Cruise was an exciting young actor who went out of his way to work with interesting filmmakers in hopes of doing interesting things. American Made isn’t necessarily a return to that, but it does suggest that that guy is still in there somewhere.

American Made

Like Follow Followed R Drama Action Release Date September 29, 2017 Runtime 115 Minutes Director Doug Liman Writers Gary Spinelli

Cast

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• Tom Cruise
• Domhnall Gleeson
• Sarah Wright
• Caleb Landry Jones

Genres Drama, Action Powered by Expand Collapse

• Movie
• Tom Cruise
• American Made

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