American Made

American Made (2017) is about a real person: Barry Seal, an airline pilot who first flew for the CIA, then carried cocaine, and ended up doing both at once. In the early eighties the CIA hires Seal for reconnaissance flights over Central America. Soon the Medellin cartel makes him a better offer. Then the drug enforcement agency gets involved, then the White House, then gun running. Seal is working for everyone simultaneously and nobody has the full picture. The tone is deliberately light; it tells a catastrophe as a comedy. Seal cannot find anywhere to put the money and buries it in the garden, stuffs it into suitcases. Doug Liman directed. His father Arthur Liman was chief counsel to the Iran-Contra investigation, so the material runs in the family. A fatal accident occurred during production. On 11 September 2015 a small plane belonging to the crew went down in Colombia; Alan Purwin, one of Hollywood's best known aerial pilots, and the Colombian Carlos Berl were killed, and a third pilot was badly injured. Purwin's family sued the production company. Tom Cruise did most of the flying himself. It runs 115 minutes. Good for: true stories, black comedy, and the eighties. Less good for: the film simplifies the record in places and its tone is too cheerful for the subject.