In The Mood For Some Tom Cruise And True Crime? Netflix Has You Covered
Tom Cruise loves chucking himself out of planes, but did you know he can actually fly them? The "Mission: Impossible" star has been a qualified pilot since 1994 and owns several aeronautic vehicles, including a P-51 Mustang that popped up in "Top Gun: Maverick." As he once told Hello magazine (via The Netline), "All I ever wanted to be was a pilot or an actor," affirming that he very much shares Pete Mitchell's need for speed (which should come as a shock to literally no one on the planet). But it's not just the "Top Gun" movies; 2017's "American Made" likewise saw Cruise hopping into a cockpit for a real-life crime story that cements the adage, "Truth is stranger than fiction."
Cruise stars in "American Made" as Barry Seal, a wannabe hotshot pilot who's working a cushy yet, for him, soul-draining gig flying commercial jets for TWA in the '70s when he's recruited by shady CIA agent "Schaefer" (Domhnall Gleeson) to carry out secret reconnaissance missions capturing surveillance photos in Central America. This isn't Barry's first time breaking bad; he's already been smuggling Cuban cigars from Canada into the U.S., which is how he landed on the CIA's radar in the first place. However, before he knows it, Barry also finds himself transporting cocaine for the Medellín Cartel into the States, all the while illegally supplying Contra rebels with AK-47s at Schaefer's behest. No way that's going to blow up in his face.
"American Made" was only a modest hit, but it allowed Cruise to comfortably land on his feet after his "Mummy" reboot crashed and burned just a few months earlier. Now, six years later, Netflix viewership aggregator FlixPatrol is reporting the film has cracked Netflix's top 10 in the U.S. and even hit the number one spot on Tuesday, October 10.
'If this ain't the greatest country in the world'
Directed by Cruise's "Edge of Tomorrow" helmer Doug Liman, "American Made" is absolutely cut from the same cloth as other true crime period pieces like "Goodfellas" and "American Hustle." And while it hews closer to the dark dramedy of "Hustle," it owes an enormous debt to Martin Scorsese's oeuvre in general, employing voiceover narration, amped-up montages, and even quick push-in shots to capture both the volatility of Barry's illicit dealings and, of course, the inevitable moment where his small criminal empire starts collapsing in upon itself. There's even a scene where Barry makes it snow in the suburbs, although it plays very differently than Henry Hill's own coked-out descent into paranoia in "Goodfellas."
So far as Scorsese riffs go, "American Made" is one of the better ones, with Liman bringing enough flair to his direction to liven up the relatively formulaic script by Gary Spinelli. Its biggest issue might be Cruise himself, who was simply a decade too old to play Barry by the time it was made. The problem isn't his appearance (all that bathing in the blood of virgins, or whatever it is Scientologists do, has served him well), it's that the actor doesn't have that air of middle-aged ennui about him demanded by the role. Still, Cruise doing his own flying lends an intensity to the action in "American Made," which helps offset the wobbliness of his character's domestic strife in the film.
Judging by its upcoming slate, Netflix has no intent of hopping off the true crime bandwagon it's been riding to immense — though ethically suspect — success for years. But if you're looking for a worthwhile entry in the sub-genre (one that actually says something meaningful about the so-called "American Dream" and the fallacy of American exceptionalism), consider taking to the air with Cruise instead.