American Made

Barry Seal, an airline pilot is recruited by CIA agent Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) to conduct reconaissance missions over South America. He is intercepted by the Medellin Cartel who offer him a job. Schafer asks Seal to deliver guns to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua as part of. In turn, the cartel ask him to deliver guns to the Columbians and the drugs to the Contras who will deliver them to the States.

With Tom Cruise in shades, I'm sure this film would have reminded me of Top Gun if I'd ever watched it in the first place. Domhnall Gleeson is a safe pair of hands in most roles, his stand out moment coming when he demands the burning of all records linking the CIA to Seal. I don't know how often this occurs in their offices but I'm inclined to believe it does. It reminded me of (although is vastly inferior to) Catch Me If You Can, a story about a criminal with a certain set of skills living the high life and giving the authorities the run around before it all inevitably catches up with him.

The character development is wafer thin (Seal "looks before he leaps" but we don't know an awful lot more about him or his motivations" and the extent to which Seal's wife (played by Sarah Wright) is prepared to go along with it all feels implausible. But Cruise's charisma can carry a film a long way and American Made is good, if unsubstantial, fun.

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