IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review
American Made [2017] (directed by Doub Liman, screenplay by Gary Spinelli) is the third major U.S. film / television production to come-out recently about CIA links to drug-smuggling into the United States during the 1980s, the other two being Kill The Messenger [2014] (a biopic about the late James Webb, the former San Jose Mercury News reporter who first reported on the matter in the mid-1990s, lost his job and ended up committing suicide some years afterwards) and then a "hard-hitting" if perhaps needlessly flashy "Rolling Stone Mag-esque" History Channel sponsored 4-part mini-series America's War on Drugs [2017]
The story is relevant to this day as millions of younger to middle-aged African Americans remain nominally listed as "felons" as a result of a "crack possession" conviction (At the height of the "War on Drugs" in the 1980s-90s "possession" of ANY amount of "crack cocaine" -- whether they actually possessed a rock or two, OR IT WAS PLANTED ON THEM during a "routine police stop" .... -- was made into A FELONY in many states). This opened the door to many, usually Southern States to "legitimately" takeaway their Civil Rights and make them _ineligible to vote_ FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES unless some Southern governor chooses to do something about this, but then to do so would mean opening the door for his/her opponent to accuse him/her of being "soft on felons..." (not likely to happen ...).
Still, in this era of Russian meddling in our news, there's another aspect of this story to consider: The Russians (successors to the Soviets) LOST the Cold War in the 1980s. The story: "Well we only 'lost' because the CIA 'bent all the rules' and supported anti-Communist forces in Latin America through drug-running," is well ... "very convenient." And Readers simply consider that IF the Soviet bloc had won the Cold War, then THE BEST we could hope for today would be someone like Vladimir Putin to be "leading over us." So all in all, IT'S A GOOD THING that the Soviet Bloc lost the Cold War ...
That said, there's enough "smoke" in this story to assume that there's _a lot of fire_ underneath. So there is a necessity to "come clean" / "clear the air" before our society can legitimately go on. Many believe that so many potential African American voters were kept from voting in Florida because of "ex-Felon" voting rights restrictions that BOTH the 2000 and the 2016 elections could have resulted in Democratic Patry victories and our country would _very different_ than it is today.
But this film ISN'T about voting rights. Instead it is about one rather (in)famous drug-running pilot Barry Seal [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the film quite well by Tom Cruise) who even though he was already doing some petty smuggling while being an airline pilot for TWA -- to its the film's credit, this was shown in its opening minutes if _not_ in entirely honest hues (in reality Seal was smuggling more than just "cigars" while flying for TWA) -- before being recruited by the CIA (in the film by a Monty "Schafer" played by Domhnall Gleeson) to use his flying talents to shoot reconnaissance photos of Communist insurgent camps across Central America. The pay wasn't that great, BUT ... they gave him a really fast turboprop plane WITH ... "plenty of room" for carrying ... OTHER STUFF.
That "other stuff" BECAME cocaine for the then UPSTART Pablo Escobar Medellin Cartel and later GUNS for the Nicaraguan Contras (and _surprisingly_, for the drug cartels as well ...) going from the U.S. to Central / South America and the Contras themselves (going back up from Central America) to a surprisingly "busy" airport in rural Mena, Arkansas during _interestingly enough_ the time Bill Clinton was governor there ... and George H.W. Bush (Sr.) was first V.P. and then President ...
It makes for "one heck of the story" and from the quite rudimentary "fact checking" that I've done, my sense is that the film makers didn't necessarily let "strict adherence to the facts" _get in the way_ of telling said "good story" ... (Again, it seems that Barry Seal was smuggling "more" than just "cigars" early in his career ...).
"Good story" or not ... does the film encourage / glamorize crime? It probably does, but IMHO no more than the various films made over the decades about Prohibition Era mobsters. Does it encourage cynicism toward government? Yes it does. Yet, if the CIA was "looking away" as "freedom fighters" (both North American and Latin American) profiteered from gun and drug running, then ... some of that cynicism would seem to be legitimately earned and the best way to combat such cynicism is to enforce "discipline in the ranks" (expel and jail soldiers / agents who "go off the reservation").
Still in this era of Fake (or at least deeply slanted) "News" a wave of this kind of film, with "our guys" (the CIA) portrayed as "just a bunch of crooks" while such "self-criticism" though available [1] [2] IF ONE LOOKS REALLY HARD FOR IT on the part of the Russians in Putin's Russia (successors to the Soviets) is rare, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
So while no one will accuse me of not "enjoying a good story" ... the timing of the film at time of a wave of wave of "Fake" / "Tendentious" News stories ... makes me wince a bit. Still, Tom Cruise certainly played his role well!
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