American Made (2017) review

Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of films that have been based on true stories that seem outright ridiculous to those who have never heard of them and yet totally happened. This has ranged from films like Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street, which told the story of hard partying, drug-using stock traders, to Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain, the tale of a group of small-minded bodybuilders who partake in kidnapping and extortion to try and get rich. And as for the latest entry in this ‘genre’ of crazy stories that really happened, we have American Made. This film tells the story of Barry Seal, who went from being a commercial airline pilot to a drug and weapons smuggling informant for both the CIA and the Medellin Cartel in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It’s a film that certainly has a lot of big names working on it, that’s for sure. In the director’s chair is Doug Liman, who’s given us quite a lot of hits over the years including 1996’s Swingers, the first Jason Bourne film, 2002’s The Bourne Identity, and 2014’s cult hit Edge of Tomorrow. This film also sees him reuniting with his lead actor from Edge of Tomorrow, the one and only Tom Cruise, in what is shaping up to be a more dramatic turn for the legendary action star. And together, they give us an entertaining, albeit a bit flat, black comedy that’s fully bolstered by Cruise’s excellent performance in the lead role. 

In the late 70’s, pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works for Trans World Airlines, having notably been one of the youngest pilots ever in the company’s history. However, he decides to leave TWA when he is approached with a ‘better offer’ from CIA agent Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). After being given his own plane by Schafer, Barry is tasked with flying reconnaissance missions for the CIA in South America. Soon, this escalates into Barry serving as a liaison between the CIA and Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega. However, not long after this, Barry is then approached by Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda) and Pablo Escobar (Mauicio Mejia) of the Medellin cartel. The cartel then proceeds to have Barry smuggle their drugs into the U.S. for them. However, when the DEA soon comes into the picture, Barry is forced to move to the small town of Mena, Arkansas with his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) and their three kids to avoid suspicion. But that doesn’t stop Barry from continuing to work with both the CIA and the cartel, and thanks to the continued success of his operations, Barry is able to amass more and more wealth while also maintaining the secrecy of his endeavors through his ‘charitable’ actions in the community of Mena. Soon, though, Barry finds himself in an increasingly tense situation as he tries to balance everything that he’s been getting involved in.

While I usually don’t like to make a lot of comparisons between films, it’s safe to say that American Made shares quite a few similarities with The Wolf of Wall Street. After all, both films are about mildly successful men who get ahead in life when they partake in business practices that aren’t exactly legal. Both films also maintain an irreverent tone throughout with various bits of black comedy thrown in. But just like Wolf of Wall Street, American Made is a solidly entertaining ‘dark comedy’ based on a true story that only gets crazier and crazier once Seal begins to get involved with multiple parties at the same time. Liman’s direction is excellent and the film’s strong pacing gives it a fast-paced feel without ever seeming like it’s rushing through the plot. And thanks to the screenplay by newcomer Gary Spinelli, there are plenty of great humorous bits of dialogue throughout, primarily whenever Barry is narrating (again, like Wolf of Wall Street). I also appreciate the efforts made by Liman and his crew to give this film a nice retro aesthetic, and I’m not just talking about its status as a period piece set in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Right from the opening credits, which utilize the old logos of the production companies that worked on this film, American Made has a nice old-school aesthetic that makes it seem like the film was genuinely shot in the 80’s.

However, if I did have one gripe with this film, it’d be that the overall proceedings can sometimes be a bit dry. And that’s mainly because the character development in this film is admittedly rather slim, meaning that you don’t really connect with any of its characters apart from Barry. And even then, he’s still kind of ‘just there’ as far as main protagonists go. Still, Tom Cruise does do a fantastic job in the role. As some tend to point out, it’s been quite some time since Cruise’s days as a dramatic actor. After all, that’s where his career initially started before the Mission: Impossible franchise turned him into the action star that we know him as today. Thus, it can be argued that this is one of the rare instances where Cruise delves out of the action genre for once to remind us that he is very much more than just an action star. And here, he’s incredibly charismatic (as usual) even in the role of a morally grey character. In short, Cruise very much carries the film, and while most of the supporting roles are minor by comparison, there are still some great standouts from the film’s supporting cast. Sarah Wright has solid chemistry with Cruise in the role of Barry’s wife Lucy, who gets to have some great back-and-forth moments with her husband whenever he starts acting crazy. And as for the most prominent member of the supporting cast, Domhnall Gleeson, he too works great with Cruise as Barry’s government liaison, who works just as much as Barry does in his line of work to move up the ranks within the CIA.

I think many will agree that Doug Liman has been one of the most consistently reliable directors in the film industry. While he has had some critical misfires over the years, he’s also given us plenty of great films as well, and American Made is no exception. From the looks of it, it seems like this film is a decently faithful take on the real-life events that make up its story. And sure, like any film based on a true story, there clearly must have been some deviations from the truth; however, as Barry states in the trailer, ‘some of this s*** really happened’. And I guess you can say that it’s only fitting that Liman was the one to tell this story given that his father Arthur was, in fact, connected to this whole ordeal as the chief counsel for the investigations surrounding the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-80’s that had basically been spawned from all this. Sure enough, American Made is a well-made drama mixed with great bits of dark humor. Now, granted, that doesn’t mean that it’s flawless, as it does suffer from not really having much emotional depth to it. However, it’s all worth it for one of the best recent performances of Tom Cruise’s career. While he has certainly proven himself to be one of the best action stars in the business thanks to films like Mission: Impossible, Jack Reacher, and Edge of Tomorrow, a film like this proves that he’s also a great actor when given a great script to work with. And while American Made may not exactly be one of his best films, it still stands as an entertaining crime drama based around an interesting tidbit of this country’s history.

Rating: 4/5

Jason Bourne (2002-2012) Franchise Retrospective

This past weekend saw the release of the highly anticipated return of one of cinema’s most famous action heroes; Jason Bourne. The new film, rather fittingly (or lazily depending on who you ask) called Jason Bourne, sees Matt Damon return as the badass former CIA assassin suffering from amnesia and is once again directed by Paul Greengrass, who helmed the latter two of the franchise’s original three installments. It’s a sequel that not many people were expecting would get made, seeing how after 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum it seemed as if the two were done with the franchise. An attempt was made to continue the franchise in 2012, with Jeremy Renner starring in the role of a new character in a film that still took place within the world of the previous Bourne films. Unfortunately for many people it ended up being a rather disappointing affair and while there seemed to be plans to continue this part of the franchise, with Justin Lin at one point attached to direct a fifth installment starring Renner’s character Aaron Cross, for now it seems like those plans won’t be materializing anytime soon. But perhaps that’s for the better at this point as the new film finally sees the duo of Damon and Greengrass return to the franchise that they made famous. So today, in honor of the release of Jason Bourne, it’s time we look back at the series of action films that are well-regarded for their attempts at developing a sense of realism while also being rather polarizing in regards to their filmmaking style. And yes, that includes both the original Matt Damon trilogy and the spin-off starring Jeremy Renner. These are the Bourne films…

THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002)

Believe it or not, the Bourne franchise did not start off under the direction of Paul Greengrass. Instead, the first film in the series, 2002’s The Bourne Identity, was directed by Doug Liman, director of films like 1996’s smash hit Swingers and 2014’s film fan favorite Edge of Tomorrow. And even though it no doubt ended up getting overshadowed by its two sequels, for a while the first Bourne was actually my personal favorite of the bunch. I think this film did a phenomenal job of doing what every good ‘first film’ in a franchise should do. It solidly sets up the story of its main character Jason Bourne, a man who is found floating adrift in the Mediterranean Sea with two bullets in his back. He has no idea who he is and embarks on a journey to figure out his true identity while also staying on the run from the government program that he may have been involved with. The film as a whole is a solid, well-paced, and well-edited spy thriller and we as an audience are immediately hooked by the mystery surrounding Bourne’s past. And while the action sequences weren’t necessarily shot in the same kind of hand-held style of Greengrass’ later two films, they are still very solid compared to what was to come later. Matt Damon, who apparently got dealt with the equivalent of a ‘superhero casting’ backlash upon being cast in the role, does a phenomenal job as Bourne as does Franka Potente in the role of Bourne’s primary ally Marie. There’s also a few solid supporting roles as well from the likes of Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, and Julia Stiles. In short, while I’m not saying it’s the absolute ‘best’ of the series, The Bourne Identity is a very nice start to this franchise. In fact, I have to agree with fellow film critic Chris Stuckmann in that this film is arguably the most layered of the franchise when it comes to story and character depth.

Rating: 4.5/5

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004)

Thanks to the success of Identity, a sequel was put into development and released two years later; The Bourne Supremacy. This time around, however, Doug Liman did not return as director due to creative conflicts that he had with the studio during production of the first film. So instead, Paul Greengrass was hired primarily due to his work on the film Bloody Sunday. And with Greengrass’ hiring, the series truly adopted its trademark style of handheld camerawork, a style that proved to be rather polarizing amongst critics and audiences. As for me, I’ll admit that I too am rather mixed on it. I appreciate what the filmmakers are trying to do in putting us right there in the middle of the action and they do succeed in that regard. However, my issue with this shooting style actually stems with the editing, which is very fast and does a lot of cuts during scenes like this to the point where sometimes it’s hard to tell where everything is spatially. By comparison, while there were some instances of ‘fast cuts’ in the previous film, Supremacy does it much more frequently. Sure this does a nice job of setting up the frenetic nature of the plot but it can get rather annoying at times. And to be perfectly frank, I think Supremacy is the weakest of the original trilogy. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think that this is a well-done spy thriller that is pretty darn well-paced and the main plot of this film, in which Bourne finds himself having to go back on the run when he’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit, during which he finds out more about his past, is still pretty darn engaging. Plus, Greengrass definitely upped the ante when it came to giving the series a nice sense of gritty realism. However, it wouldn’t be until the next film when he truly perfected his style into making a finely-tuned spy thriller based around Matt Damon’s once again excellent turn as Jason Bourne.

Rating: 4/5

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007)

Now given everything that I just said about Supremacy, some of you might think that I have similar feelings to Greengrass’ second film in the franchise, The Bourne Ultimatum… and yet that’s actually not the case. Ultimatum is easily the best of the original trilogy and quite frankly one of the best action films of the past few years. Because whereas Greengrass’ fast-editing and handheld style sometimes faltered in certain parts of Supremacy, he perfected this style with Ultimatum. As a result, this film flows much more smoothly and while it’s still very much an action-oriented film, this time around the story is structured much better. It does a very nice job at concluding the arc that Bourne (aka David Webb, his ‘real name’) goes through in this trilogy while also making the CIA agents going after him a legitimately threatening force to be reckoned with at every turn. All of this ends up giving the film some incredibly tense action sequences, from Bourne trying to protect a reporter that spilled the beans about him and a new government program, Blackbriar, from the CIA in the middle of the congested crowds of London’s Waterloo Station to the scene where Bourne and ally Nicky Parsons (Stiles) try to escape a Blackbriar assassin in Tangier. Sure the fast-cutting handheld style is still in effect for many of the film’s action sequences but I didn’t find it as annoying as it sometimes got in Supremacy. And that is why The Bourne Ultimatum not only serves as a fitting conclusion to the original Bourne trilogy but is also its finest installment; it’s a well-oiled, fantastically acted, and strongly directed spy thriller from beginning to end. If you recall, initially The Bourne Identity was my personal favorite of the franchise but upon re-watch, I think that honor now goes to Ultimatum.

Rating: 5/5!

THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012)

With The Bourne Ultimatum providing a pretty darn conclusive end to the story of Jason Bourne (at least that was the case until the new film), it seemed very much clear that Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass were done with the franchise. And yet in 2012, Universal moved on without the two of them and attempted to take the series in a brand new direction. Tony Gilroy, who had been the primary writer for all three of the previous films, took over directorial duties for this fourth installment, The Bourne Legacy. This time around, the focus shifted onto Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), an operative in another government program, Outcome. The film opens up around the same time as the events of Ultimatum, which effectively leads to the government shuttering all of their programs and wiping out all of their agents, which includes Cross. In the months leading up to its release, the film’s marketing kept pushing its connections to the original trilogy. I even remember a specific ad in which Cross stated that he was “going to finish what ‘he’ [Bourne] started”. However, that’s really not the case at all with this film. Sure there are a few cameos from the cast of Ultimatum (e.g. Joan Allen, David Strathairn, etc.) but there’s only a few mentions of the events of Ultimatum at the beginning of the film and even then they don’t really factor that much into this film’s plot. And that quote about Cross finishing what Bourne started? Yeah that line isn’t in the film… well, actually it is but it wasn’t at all connected to Bourne. Heck, Cross doesn’t even follow in Bourne’s footsteps whatsoever in this film. Literally the whole plot revolves around him trying to acquire the meds that Outcome agents take to become physically and mentally enhanced government agents.

And that pretty much translates to the fact that this film as a whole is pretty darn dull. It’s very light on action and yet it’s somehow the longest of the series at 2 hours and 15 minutes long whereas the previous three films were all under two hours each. It certainly doesn’t have the same fast pacing of the Damon films, that’s for sure. As for the action sequences that are in there, Gilroy opted to not go with the same handheld shooting style that Greengrass utilized in his films. For those who weren’t that big a fan of that style that may seem like a good thing but in reality that style is what allowed this series to stand out in the first place. As a result, the action sequences in this film are fairly lackluster compared to the other films. Now from a technical perspective, the film is decently shot, edited, directed and what not. I think Jeremy Renner is perfectly fine in the lead role of Aaron Cross. The same goes for Rachel Weisz as Cross’ main ally Dr. Marta Shearing, though with that said their on-screen chemistry is rather weak. Sadly, Edward Norton is quite underused in the role of Eric Byer, the Outcome program’s overseer who goes after Cross the same way that Alexander Conklin (Chris Cooper), Ward Abbott (Brian Cox), and Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) pursued Bourne in each of the other three films. And yet Norton unfortunately doesn’t get much to work with here compared to the other three. He doesn’t even share a scene with Cross, at least not in the main story. The only scene that Renner and Norton have together is a flashback scene that quite frankly didn’t really explain anything about how the two of them are supposed to be connected.

I first reviewed this film way back in August 2012 when it originally came out. I was really looking forward to it at the time and had just watched all of the previous Bourne films back-to-back for three straight nights in anticipation of its release. But when I did see it, I’ll admit that I was rather disappointed by it. Sure I may have given it a 3.5/5 in my review but this is definitely one of those cases where I feel that I was being way too generous in regards to giving it a rating. Ultimately, when I did a post on my ‘Top 5 Most Disappointing Films’ in December of that year, I ended up putting it at the number one spot. And after watching it again in preparation for this retrospective… sadly my thoughts on it stay the same. Is it any wonder as to why this ‘review’ was longer compared to the Damon films? This is an extremely bare-bones thriller. The plot is not only rather simple, especially in regards to its measly attempts to connect to the Damon films, but sometimes even a bit confusing, which is a big problem for anyone going into it that hasn’t seen any of the other films. It may take place in the same universe as the Damon films but it ends up being such an insignificant part of it that nothing that happens in this film ultimately matters in the long run. Like I said before, it’s decently made from a technical perspective and I do feel that Jeremy Renner was perfectly capable of taking over for Matt Damon as the star of the franchise. But at the end of the day, the writing just wasn’t there for him and as a result, this unfortunately ended up being a failed attempt to continue the Bourne franchise without the involvement of its original star and primary director.

Rating: 2.5/5

In conclusion, here’s how I rank these four films;

4. THE BOURNE LEGACY

3. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

2. THE BOURNE IDENTITY

1. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) review

Easily one of the most notable comedies of all time is 1993’s ‘Groundhog Day’, which revolved around an arrogant TV weatherman who finds himself caught in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again. The concept of a character ending up in a time loop has also been seen in a few other movies such as ‘Source Code’ and ’12 Monkeys’ and that idea is also prominent in director Doug Liman’s ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, which is based off of a 2004 Japanese light novel, ‘All You Need is Kill’ by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. I have to say… I was quite surprised when I saw that this film was getting really good reviews (it currently stands at an 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) because going in, I was sort of expecting to have a RT rating somewhere in the 60’s or lower but instead it’s currently one of the best-reviewed films of this summer… and in its opening weekend, it only grossed $28.8 million here in the U.S. Oh man, that’s sad, especially when considering that this really is one of the best films of the year so far. A far more original film than what we’re usually seeing these days (I mean… original as much as being based a ‘light novel’ can be but I digress), ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ features some great action sequences and Tom Cruise at the best that’s he’s ever been in quite some time.

For the last five years, a war has been going on between humanity and an alien species known as the Mimics, and while at first the aliens continued to defeat the humans in battle, the United Defense Forces have been able to turn the odds around with the introduction of armed exoskeletons to help soldiers in battle. As the UDF intends to launch an invasion against the Mimics in France, UDF spokesman Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) learns that he has been ordered to cover the action on the beaches, despite the fact that he’s completely inexperienced when it comes to combat. Not wanting to go, even going so far as to blackmail his superior officer, Cage ultimately ends up getting stripped of his rank and is put into battle with the first wave of soldiers, who are quickly annihilated by the Mimics, who have anticipated the attack in advance. Cage ends up getting killed after destroying a larger Mimic but ends up getting doused in its blood, resulting in him getting stuck in a time loop as he finds himself continuously resetting back to the day before he’s sent into battle every time he dies. Cage soon teams up with Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), one of the UDF’s top soldiers who, as it turns out, was also in a time loop during a battle, as she helps him train while they work together to try and find a way to defeat the Mimics before the invasion in France ever begins.

The whole scenario of a character getting caught in a time loop can run the risk of becoming tiresome after a while but thankfully that’s not the case here. Obviously, as is typical with this scenario, there are times where, after Cage has been through the time loop a few times, he is able to anticipate what’s going to happen but it’s not really done by having the same scene run over and over again. Instead, at certain points the movie is already at the point where Cage knows what’s going to happen instead of just showing him continuously failing over and over again which again could get rather tedious if we were watching the same thing happen repeatedly. In fact, the whole scenario about Cage’s method of trial-and-error ultimately results in the film’s greatest strength; its humor. There are a lot of funny moments revolving around a lot of the mistakes that Cage makes while in the time loop, like one particularly funny moment that I won’t dare spoil here but I will say that it happens before Cage even steps into battle. Speaking of battles, the action in this movie is well-shot, those mech suits are pretty darn cool, and the film has a very nice pace to it, always keeping your interest at all times.

Whether you like him or not, there’s no denying that Tom Cruise is a fantastic action star and here I’d say that he’s the best that he’s ever been for quite some time. For one thing, I really like that the character he plays in this doesn’t start out as a badass soldier (like, let’s be honest, most of his action roles these days), but rather an inexperienced spokesman for the UDF who so does not want to go into battle that he’s willing to blackmail the commander of the UDF so that he doesn’t have to fight. Obviously that doesn’t work for him, but overall this serves as a very nice change of pace from what we usually see from the characters that Tom Cruise plays while Cruise still maintains a lot of charm and wit while in the role. Equally excellent here is Emily Blunt, in her second straight great sci-fi film in a row following 2012’s ‘Looper’. Her character Rita is such a terrific action heroine that really, this movie didn’t even need Tom Cruise’s character because she could have probably done everything on her own, though with that said Cruise and Blunt do have some really nice chemistry and camaraderie. Hopefully this means that Blunt will get some action roles in the future because I could definitely see her in more action roles, especially if they’re written as well as her role in this film was.

It’s kind of sad that this movie didn’t do so well in its opening weekend. I mean, here we have one of the best-reviewed films of this summer and one that really lives up to that pedigree thanks to excellent action sequences, a great pair of leads, and most importantly, a good sense of humor. But instead, less than $30 million worth of people saw this film when it debuted. Thank god for the international box office then because otherwise this film could’ve ended up being a big box office flop. Whatever the reason was for this film’s weak opening weekend, whether it be because of a bad marketing campaign that might have made some audience members think this was another ‘Oblivion’ (a film which, for the record, I did like but overall it wasn’t as well-received as this one) or because of how, in these days, Hollywood isn’t too keen on more original material (though again, as I said, this is based on a light novel though it’s still fairly more original than a lot of other films these days), one thing is for certain. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I highly recommend that you do because this is one of the best films of the year so far and I do feel that you’ll be satisfied by what you see.

Rating: 4.5/5