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American Made

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Rent American Made on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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American Made 's fast-and-loose attitude with its real-life story mirrors the cavalier -- and delightfully watchable -- energy Tom Cruise gives off in the leading role.

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Domhnall Gleeson

Monty "Schafer"

Sarah Wright

Jesse Plemons

Sheriff Downing

Caleb Landry Jones

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The makers of the based-on-a-true-story black comedy "American Made" fail to satisfactorily answer one pressing question: why is CIA operative and Colombia drug-runner Barry Seal's story being told as a movie and not a book? What's being shown in this film that couldn't also be expressed in prose?

In telling the true story of American airplane pilot Barry Seal ( Tom Cruise ), writer Gary Spinelli and director Doug Liman ("Edge of Tomorrow ," " Jumper ") choose to overstimulate viewers rather than challenge them. They emphasize Barry's charm, the exotic nature of his South American trade routes, and the rapid escalation of events that ultimately led to his downfall. Cruise's smile is, in this context, deployed like a weapon in Liman and Spinelli's overwhelming charm offensive. You don't get a lot of psychological insight into Barry's character, or learn why he was so determined to make more money than he could spend, despite conflicting pressures from Pablo Escobar's drug cartel and the American government to either quit or collude.

But you do get a lot of shots of Cruise grinning from behind aviator glasses in extreme close-ups, many of which are lensed with hand-held digital cameras that show you the wilds of Nicaragua and Colombia through an Instagram-cheap green/yellow filter. "American Made" may be superficially a condemnation of the hypocritical American impulse to take drug suppliers' money with one hand and chastise users with the other. But it's mostly a sensational, sub-"Wolf of Wall Street"-style true crime story that attempts to seduce you, then abandon you.

The alarming pace of Barry's narrative, designed to put Cruise’s charisma front and center, keeps viewers disoriented. It's often hard to understand Barry's motives beyond caricature-broad assumptions about his (lack of) character. In 1977, Barry agrees to fly over South American countries and take photos of suspected communist groups using a spy plane provided by shadowy CIA pencil-pusher Schafer ( Domhnall Gleeson ). Barry is impulsive, or so we're meant to think based on an incident where he wakes up a sleeping co-pilot by abruptly sending a commercial airliner into a nosedive. This scene may explain why Barry grins like a lunatic as he explains to his wife Lucy ( Sarah Wright ) that he'll figure out a way to pay out of pocket for his family's health insurance once he opens an independent shipping company called "IAC" (Get it? IAC - CIA?).

Barry's impetuousness does not, however, explain why he flies so low to land when he takes his photographs. Or why he doesn't immediately reach out to Schafer when he's kidnapped and forced by Escobar (Mauricio Mejia) and his Cartel associates to deliver hundreds of pounds of cocaine to the United States. Or why Barry thinks so little of his wife and kids that he packs their Louisiana house up one night without explanation, and moves them to a safe-house in Arkansas. There's character-defining insanity, and then there's "this barely makes sense in the moment when it is happening" crazy. Barry often appears to be the latter kind of nutbar.

There are two types of people in "American Made": the kind that work and the kind that get worked over. It's easy to tell the two apart based on how much screen-time Spinelli and Liman devote to each character. Schafer, for example, is defined by the taunts he suffers from a fellow cubicle drone and his own tendency to over-promise. Schafer doesn't do real work—not in the filmmakers' eyes. The same is true of Escobar and his fellow dealers, who are treated as lawless salesmen of an unsavory product. And don't get me started on JB ( Caleb Landry Jones ), Lucy's lazy, Gremlin-driving, under-age-girl-dating, Confederate-flag-waving redneck brother.

But what about Lucy? She keeps Barry's family together, but her feelings are often taken for granted, even when she calls Barry out for abandoning her suddenly in order to meet up with Schafer. Barry responds by throwing bundles of cash at his wife's feet. The argument, and the scene end just like that, like a smug joke whose punchline might as well be, There's no problem that a ton of cash can't solve .

"American Made" sells a toxic, shallow, anti-American Dream bill of goods for anybody looking to shake their head about exceptionalism without seriously considering what conditions enable that mentality. Spinelli and Liman don't say anything except, Look at how far a determined charmer can go if he's greedy and determined enough . They respect Barry too much to be thoughtfully critical of him. And they barely disguise their fascination with broad jokes that tease Barry's team of hard-working good ol' boys and put down everyone else.

Sure, it's important to note that Barry ultimately meets a just end, one that's been prescribed to thousands of other would-be movie gangsters. But you can easily shrug off a little finger-wagging at the end of a movie that treats you to two hours of Tom Cruise charming representatives of every imaginable US institution (they don't call in the Girl Scouts, the Golden Girls or the Hulk-busters, but I'm sure they're in a director's cut). If there is a reason, good or bad, that "American Made" is a movie, it's that you can't be seduced by the star of " Top Gun " in a book.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in The New York Times , Vanity Fair , The Village Voice, and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

American Made (2017)

Rated R for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity.

115 minutes

Tom Cruise as Barry Seal

Domhnall Gleeson as Monty 'Schafer'

Sarah Wright as Lucy Seal

Jesse Plemons as Sheriff Downing

Caleb Landry Jones as JB

Lola Kirke as Judy Downing

Jayma Mays as Dana Sibota

Gary Spinelli

Cinematographer

César Charlone
Andrew Mondshein
Christophe Beck

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Tom Cruise Crash Lands in ‘American Made’ Trailer (Watch)

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Tom Cruise combines piloting skills and charm in the first trailer for Universal’s drug-running drama “ American Made ” as he crash lands a small plane full of cocaine in a suburban neighborhood.

After he gets out of the plane, covered in cocaine, he flashes the usual dazzling Cruise grin and begins handing out cash to youngsters and saying, “You never saw me.”

In the film, Cruise portrays 1980s pilot and hustler Barry Seal. “I was running drugs for the CIA, the DEA and Pablo Escobar,” he says in a voiceover.

The film made headlines two years ago when a plane carrying crew members crashed on the set in Colombia in September 2015 , killing two people and seriously injuring a third person. Local authorities believe that bad weather caused the twin-engine Aerostar to crash.

Cruise was in production on the movie at the time of the incident, but was not on the plane. Universal decided last August to change the title from “ Mena ” to “ American Made ,” and move it from Jan. 6, 2017, to Sept. 29, 2017.

“American Made” is the latest collaboration between Cruise and director Doug Liman , following their collaboration on “Edge of Tomorrow.” The crime thriller also features Domhnall Gleeson, Lola Kirke, Jesse Plemons, Jayma Mays, Sarah Wright Olsen and Caleb Landry Jones.

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See the trailer for “American Made” below:

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Wild bunch: Domhnall Gleeson and Tom Cruise in American Made.

American Made review – maverick Tom Cruise feels the need for speed in flashy thriller

A grinning Cruise is back in Top Gun territory in Doug Liman’s sort-of-true story about a bored pilot who starts working for a Colombian cartel and the CIA

You’d need a heart of stone not to indulge Tom Cruise’s midlife return to Top Gun antics in this flashy, entertaining crime thriller by director Doug Liman, featuring Tom with blindingly toothy grin and sunglasses whizzing around in his light aircraft with US Customs agents riding his tail ( to quote Roger Avary ).

It’s based on the sort-of-true-ish story of a former TWA pilot who in 1984 was arrested for gun-running, money-laundering and carrying drugs in his plane for Colombia’s Medellín Cartel. He cut a deal to incriminate bigger players and claimed he had been involved with government intelligence agencies from the outset – this movie sportingly takes him at his word.

Cruise plays Barry Seal, competent but bored airline pilot and impeccable husband to super-hot wife Lucy (Sarah Wright). He is very excited to be approached by shadowy CIA man Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) and asked to fly a spy plane over Central America to photograph communist insurgents. His roistering antics catch the attention of Pablo Escobar’s drug barons who force him to fly their cocaine to the US. Then he is bullied by Schafer with a new plan: fly guns to Nicaragua’s anti-communist rebels, the contras, who are actually more interested in selling the drugs that the Colombians had given them in exchange for these guns – a murky setup which the movie suggests laid the foundations for the Iran-Contra deal.

It’s a salacious war-story picture that leans heavily on the voiceover-flashback style pioneered in GoodFellas, and it reminded me a little of Ted Demme’s tiresome coke history Blow (2001), or more recently something like Todd Phillips’s War Dogs (2016). But the beamingly ingenuous Cruise, whose character is not burdened with any doubts or an inner life, somehow sells it to you.

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Domhnall Gleeson

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American Made Is a Super Cynical Crime Caper

Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal, a drug smuggler who worked for the CIA, in Doug Liman’s surprisingly caustic true-story film.

Domhnall Gleeson and Tom Cruise in 'American Made'

“It’s not a felony if you’re doing it for the good guys,” blares the tagline on the poster for American Made , Tom Cruise’s freewheeling new caper of a film about the life of Barry Seal. It’s the kind of sentiment Hollywood loves to celebrate—a rebel breaking the rules for an important cause, or even a patriotic one, as Seal did working off the books for the CIA. What better casting could there be for such a role than Cruise, sporting a shaggy ’70s hairdo and a pair of aviators, executing daredevil pilot moves as he flies around Central and South America? It’s Maverick from Top Gun all over again, just a little grimier.

Except Seal’s life was more than a little grimy—he was a grade-A drug smuggler, a favorite of the Medellín Cartel and Pablo Escobar. Whatever CIA benefactors he served were essentially blackmailing him into clandestine ops to serve shady operations like the Iran-Contra affair. The director Doug Liman takes advantage of Cruise in a fascinating way (much as he did with the star in Edge of Tomorrow , the duo’s last collaboration): by poking at his inherent charisma and peeling it back, mocking the very idea of the American cowboy hero at the center of his boisterous but refreshingly cynical tale.

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When we meet Seal, he’s a TWA pilot with a low-level smuggling business on the side, bringing a duffel bag of contraband with him on his flights to score a little extra dough. He’s approached by Monty (Domhnall Gleeson), a CIA agent with a proposition for him: Fly a little propeller plane over rebel bases in Central and South America, take some pictures, and maybe drop off some secret packages for Manuel Noriega, the U.S.-supported military leader in Panama. Good money, off the books, very hush-hush, but all in the name of serving his country.

Seal obliges, and quickly things spiral out of control. Escobar, then on the rise in Colombia, takes note of Seal’s secret flights and demands he start shipping bricks of cocaine on the way back, dumping them out of the air in Louisiana to avoid the DEA. The CIA eventually cottons on but allows the whole thing to continue, as long as Seal can smuggle back some guns for the Contras fighting in Nicaragua. Escobar tolerates that, as long as Seal can operate a whole fleet of cocaine planes to keep his product moving. On and on it goes, with both sides tacitly ignoring the other so that Seal can keep operating extralegally wherever he goes.

Liman and his screenwriter Gary Spinelli tell the tale with all the freewheeling charm required of a caper picture. But American Made never lets the audience forget just how shadily the CIA is behaving throughout, even though Seal is always along for the ride. He has to be—the house of cards he’s built collapses if any of the extralegal organizations he’s working with gets sick of him—and Cruise plays Seal as breezy with just a hint of desperation.

Cruise, one of the last titans of the 1990s who’s still regularly churning out these kinds of star-driven vehicles, already had one flop this year— The Mummy —in which he strained credulity as a virile, strapping young adventurer. At 55, Cruise is far older than the man he’s playing (who was 40 at the height of his CIA misadventures, though his life story has been significantly smoothed out and Hollywoodized). But Liman uses Cruise’s age mostly to his advantage, playing up the cracks in Cruise’s façade, especially as Seal tries to convince his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) that his newfound wealth isn’t ill-gotten.

American Made ’s best set pieces revolve around Seal’s obvious lie; it’s quite something to watch the smuggler, covered in blood, cheerfully shoving clothes in a garbage bag and telling Lucy they have to leave home before the sun rises. At another point, a drug run gets interrupted by the DEA and Seal ends up ditching the plan in a small town in Louisiana, getting away from the cops on a children’s bicycle while covered in cocaine. It’s been a while since Cruise made a movie this risky, but American Made is exactly that—it’s a story where Ronald Reagan ends up as the ultimate villain, and Pablo Escobar comes across as the most level-headed of Seal’s bosses.

Liman’s visual panache is lacking at times. The action scenes are often shoddily edited, keeping Seal’s daring flights from feeling genuinely thrilling, and whatever late ’70s/early ’80s look he’s aiming for is absent outside of the hairdos. Cruise, for all his live-wire energy (and he has a lot of it), should probably stop making films that so willfully deny his age, even though he’s talented enough to make it work for two hours. But by the time the movie roared to its shockingly grim, remarkably embittered ending, American Made had won me over. Barry Seal, it turns out, isn’t a hero worth rooting for—but neither are the “good guys” handing him the keys to the plane.

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The True Story Behind the Movie <em>American Made</em>

The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

American Made , the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to make the phenomenon of raining money a plausible ecological scenario. And a sex scene in the cockpit of a plane. That’s flying through the air. With one participant being the pilot. Did we mention it’s Tom Cruise?

If it sounds like an exercise in screenwriting excess, it’s not entirely — the film takes as its inspiration the true story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and, later, an informant for the DEA. It’s an ideal vehicle for Cruise, a.k.a. Maverick , whose mischievous swagger is accented here (literally) with a Louisiana drawl.

The movie hardly purports to be a documentary — director Doug Liman, who reteams with Cruise after Edge of Tomorrow , has referred to it as “a fun lie based on a true story.” And perhaps its looseness with the facts is for the best, as conflicting accounts make it difficult to get a clear picture on certain aspects of Seal’s seemingly made-for-the-movies life. It’s a thorny story that takes place against the backdrop of the Reagan-era War on Drugs and the notorious Iran-Contra affair , with Seal never hesitating to do business with opposing sides, so long as the payout was prodigious.

Here’s what we know about Seal — and what’s still up for debate.

MORE: Review: American Made Lets a Smug Tom Cruise Just Be Tom Cruise

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

According to Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal — written by retired FBI agent Del Hahn, who worked on the task force that went after Seal in the ’80s — Seal obtained his student pilot license at 15 and became fully licensed at 16. His instructor was so impressed by his natural talent that he allowed him to fly solo after only eight hours of training. After serving in the National Guard and Army Reserve, he became a pilot with TWA, among the youngest command pilots to operate a Boeing 707.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

As Cruise plays him, Seal was a blend of balls and braggadocio, fond of stunts and rarely registering the possibilities of danger or failure. According to Hahn, Seal’s high school yearbook photo was accompanied by the inscription, “Full of fun, full of folly.” His flight instructor described him as wild and fearless and generally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. In an interview with Vice , Hahn says Seal was personable but “not as smart and clever as he thought he was.”

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Sarah Wright plays Seal’s delightfully foul-mouthed wife in the movie, alternately exasperated by his schemes and enthralled by the riches they bring. In reality, Seal was married three times and had five children. He had a son and daughter with first wife Barbara Bottoms, whom he married in 1963 and subsequently divorced. He then married Linda McGarrh Ross in 1971, divorcing a year later, before marrying Deborah Ann DuBois, with whom he would go on to have three children, in 1974.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

While the film depicts Seal’s foray into smuggling as beginning with Cuban cigars, his first documented run-in with the law for a smuggling offense took place in 1972 when he was one of eight people arrested for a plot to smuggle explosives out of the U.S. Though he wasn’t convicted, he lost his job with TWA. By 1976, according to Hahn, he had moved onto marijuana, and within a couple of years graduated to cocaine, which was less bulky, less sniffable by dogs and generally more profitable.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Seal and the pilots he recruited — including one he met in jail and his first wife’s brother — trafficked drugs over the border of his home state. As in the movie, he sometimes delivered them by pushing packed duffel bags out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be retrieved by partners on the ground.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

In the movie, Seal meets the cartel big wigs early on. In reality, Hahn writes, he did not deal with them directly, and they referred to him only as “El Gordo,” or “The Fat Man.” He finally met with them in April 1984 when he was working with the DEA on a sting operation intended to lead to their capture. (That operation would go awry when Seal’s status as an informant was revealed in a Washington Times cover story months later.)

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

The DEA was onto Seal for a long time before securing an indictment against him in March 1983 on several counts, including conspiracy to distribute methaqualone and possession with intent to distribute Quaaludes. As the movie suggests, there was some confusion among government agencies intent on taking him down.

His initial attempt to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, offering information on the Ochoa family, was rejected. But in March 1984, he traveled to Washington to the office of the Vice President’s Drug Task Force and cut a deal on the strength of his intel on and connections to the cartel.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

The film has Seal’s involvement with the CIA beginning in the late 1970s, relatively early on in his smuggling career. Under the handling of an agent played by Domhnall Gleeson, Cruise’s Seal gathers intelligence by flying low over Guatemala and Nicaragua and snapping photos from his plane. Later, the CIA turns a blind eye to his drug smuggling in exchange for his delivery of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua, who the U.S. government was attempting to mobilize against the leftist Sandinistas, who controlled the government. The movie even suggests that the CIA helped set Seal up with his very own airport in the small town of Mena, Ark.

According to Hahn’s book, rumors of Seal’s involvement with the CIA anytime before 1984 were just that — rumors. The only confirmed connection between Seal and the CIA turned up by Hahn’s research was in 1984, after Seal had begun working as an informant for the DEA. The CIA placed a hidden camera in a cargo plane Seal flew to pick up a cocaine shipment in Colombia. He and his copilot were able to obtain photographs that proved a link between the Sandinistas and the cartel, key intelligence for the Reagan administration in its plans to help overthrow the Sandinistas’ regime. But the final piece of the operation — a celebration of the successful cocaine transport, at which the Ochoas and Escobar were to be arrested all at once — never happened because of the revelation of Seal’s status as an informant.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

Jorge Ochoa reportedly ordered a hit on Seal early in 1986. At the time, Seal was living in a Baton Rouge Salvation Army facility. Charges against him had not been fully erased as a result of his cooperation with the government, and he was sentenced to probation and six months residing at the treatment center. On the evening of Feb. 19, just after he parked his Cadillac, he was killed by two Colombian hitmen armed with machine guns.

Thanks in part to several witnesses, both men and four additional men who conspired in the killing were arrested within two days. Seal would go down as a legendary criminal, one of the most important witnesses in DEA history and — in Hollywood’s estimation, at least — a classic American story fit for only our most American onscreen hero.

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American Made vs. the True Story of Barry Seal

Had barry seal really been a commercial airline pilot for twa.

Yes. Like in the American Made movie, the real Barry Seal earned a living as a commercial airline pilot for several years. He was hired by Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1964 and at age 26 became one of the youngest Captains operating a Boeing 707. He had already been flying planes for nearly half his life, earning his student pilot's license at age 15 and pilot's license at 16. Embracing his entrepreneurial spirit as a teenager, he started a small business flying ads from his airplane. In 1961, he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard and served with the 20th Special Forces Group for six years. -Daily Mail Online Like in the movie, the real Barry Seal was a former TWA pilot.

Was Barry Seal recruited by the CIA while he worked for TWA?

No, in real life, it happened earlier. In the American Made movie, Barry Seal's boredom with piloting commercial flights leads him to perform stunts that cause the oxygen masks to fall and frighten passengers. This draws the attention of the CIA. Operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) approaches Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and tells him, "We need you to deliver stuff for us." The real Barry Seal claimed that he started running covert operations for various government agencies as early as the late 1950s, while he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, well before he became a TWA pilot. Seal said that he started by doing things like flying guns for the CIA to revolution fighters in Cuba in the late 1950s and flying operations for U.S. Army Special Forces in Laos just prior to the Vietnam War. -Daily Mail Online

Did Barry Seal resign as a TWA pilot to carry out covert operations for the CIA?

No. Barry Seal was fired from TWA in 1974 for falsely citing medical leave when he was actually off trafficking weapons. He had been arrested in 1972 by the U.S. Customs Service for trying to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to anti-Castro Cubans via Mexico. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal

Is Domhnall Gleeson's character, Monty Schafer, based on a real CIA agent?

No. Fact-checking American Made revealed that Monty Schafer is a fictional character created to represent Barry Seal's contacts at the CIA. There is no real-life Monty. Domhnall Gleeson as fictional CIA agent Monty Schafer in American Made .

Did Barry Seal meet Lee Harvey Oswald?

Yes. An interesting fact we learned while researching the true story was that while training for the Civil Air Patrol in Baton Rouge, Barry Seal met President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. - Refinery29

Is Barry Seal's wife in the movie based on a real person?

Yes. However, her real name is Debbie, not Lucy. She is a brunette, not a blond like Sarah Wright's character in the movie. Barry met Debbie while he was on his way to a hearing after he was caught in 1972 trying to smuggle military explosives out of the country. The explosives were supposedly going to anti-Castro Cuban fighters. Debbie, who was 21 at the time, met Barry, 33, while working as a cashier at a restaurant. "He stopped in there and, just like that, he asked me out," Debbie told Daily Mail Online . "He would tell me all these wild stories about the missions he had flown. I was young and it was impressive." They married in 1974. Debbie became Barry's third wife. He had previously been married to Barbara Bottoms (m. 1963-1971) and Lynn Ross (m. 1971-1972).

Was Barry Seal really working for both the CIA and Pablo Escobar in the early 1980s?

The extent of Barry Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s has provided fuel for speculation and conspiracy theories. As author Del Hahn states in his book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal , there is no evidence to support claims that Barry Seal worked for the CIA. Hahn was part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. In his book, he uses case documents and first-person accounts to dispel this idea and other half-truths about Seal. However, some still allege the opposite, that the government turned a blind eye to Seal's drug running in order to use him to deliver weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels. Basically, Seal would fly over the guns and smuggle back drugs on his return trip. It's certainly possible and it's what the movie proposes. Yet, it's also certainly possible that Seal had no involvement with the CIA in the early 1980s at all, given there is nothing to support the claim but rumors. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. In his research for the book, the only confirmed connection Hahn could make between the CIA and Barry Seal was in 1984, after Seal had started working as an informant for the DEA. What is certain is that Barry Seal did work for Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas as a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and single-handedly had one of the largest impacts on the cocaine epidemic in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Seal made an estimated $60 million off smuggling drugs into the country and became one of the richest people in America. Executing secret missions for the government in the movie might add a sort of patriotism and redeeming quality to his character, but in real life Barry Seal was a drug smuggler first and foremost. That aspect of who he was has never been disputed. Del Hahn's book "Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal" attempts to dispel the rumors and half-truths associated with Barry Seal, including his work for the CIA.

What was the Iran-Contra affair?

As stated in the previous question, there is no strong evidence to confirm that Barry Seal was working with the CIA prior to becoming an informant after his arrest in 1983. Yet, some believe that Seal was working for the CIA in the 1980s to fly guns and money to Nicaraguan rebels, a detail that the movie embraces. During the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, the U.S. plotted to secretly help the rebels (Contras) overthrow Nicaragua's Communist Sandinista government. Money from the sale of weapons to Iran was used to help fund the rebels in Nicaragua. However, the U.S. needed a way to covertly get the funds and weapons to the rebels. Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. -Daily Mail Online

When did Barry Seal begin smuggling drugs?

The movie proposes that Barry Seal's first foray into smuggling drugs happened in 1980 after he was kidnapped while refueling his plane in Colombia. In the film, his abductors take him to a secret airstrip in the Colombian jungle where three businessmen, including Pablo Escobar, make him an offer he can't pass up. Upset that he has lost his pension and healthcare at TWA, he embraces the idea of making $2,000 per kilo of cocaine smuggled into the United States. This doesn't add up with the American Made true story. According to The Independent , Barry's widow, Deborah Seal, says that he began smuggling drugs in 1975, first focusing mainly on marijuana. Seal's Drug Enforcement Administration file also supports this, noting that he was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976, then adding cocaine to his resume in 1978.

How did Barry Seal become a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel?

In the movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) starts working for the Medellín Cartel after they abduct him while he is refueling his plane and then make him an offer he can't refuse. In real life, his first encounter with the Medellín Cartel happened less dramatically. After being caught in Honduras with 40 kilograms of cocaine in 1979, Barry spent nine months in a Honduran jail. While there, he had a chance meeting with Jorge Ochoa's New Orleans business manager. The Ochoa Family, along with Pablo Escobar and others, were the founders of the Medellín Cartel. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. -Daily Mail Online This undercover photo taken from a secret camera mounted in Barry Seal's plane shows Pablo Escobar (left) and Barry Seal (right) on a tarmac in Nicaragua, where drugs were loaded onto Seal's plane.

Did Barry Seal deal directly with Pablo Escobar and the other leaders of Colombia's Medellín Cartel?

No. According to Del Hahn's book Smuggler's End , Barry Seal was not chummy with the cartel bosses. He didn't meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, after his arrest when he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation.

Did Barry Seal have three children?

No. According to TIME , in real life, he had five children and was married three times. The real Barry Seal and his wife Debbie had three children (Aaron, Dean and Christina). Barry also had a daughter and a son not shown in the movie, Lisa and Alder, with his first wife Barbara Bottoms.

Did Barry Seal really crash land a plane full of cocaine in a suburban neighborhood?

No. In the American Made movie , Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) crash lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood in an effort to escape the DEA who ordered him to land. Barry emerges from the plane covered in cocaine. He hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." The memorable scene never happened in real life. No evidence has been found to support that Barry Seal ever crash landed a plane in a suburban neighborhood, a story that surely would have made the news.

Did Barry really move his operation from Louisiana to Arkansas?

Yes. Barry Seal's smuggling operation began in Louisiana, and like in the American Made movie, he sometimes pushed packed duffel bags full of drugs out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be collected by associates on the ground. A Baton Rouge, Louisiana native, Barry Seal was eventually forced to move his drug smuggling operation after he drew the attention of Louisiana authorities. He relocated to a small regional airport in Mena, Arkansas, which had a population of only 5,000. He carried out his smuggling operation under the nose of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. -TIME

How much money did Barry make smuggling drugs into the U.S.?

As a drug smuggler for Colombia's Medellín Cartel, Barry Seal earned as much as $500,000 per flight smuggling cocaine into the United States. By 1983, his earnings totaled $60 million, making him one of the wealthiest people in America. In total, he had illegally imported $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs and an estimated 56 tons of cocaine into the U.S., making over 100 flights. -Daily Mail Online By 1983, Barry Seal had made $60 million flying illegal drugs into the U.S.

Why was the movie's title changed from Mena to American Made ?

"Mena" refers to the small town in Arkansas where Barry Seal moved his operation, smuggling in drugs to a clandestine airfield under the nose of then-Governor Bill Clinton. Per The Hollywood Reporter , the movie's title was changed to put less emphasis on the Arkansas connection, including the possibility that Bill Clinton was aware of what was going on.

Did Barry Seal's wife know that he was a drug smuggler?

Debbie Seal insists that she was unaware of what her husband was up to. She says that she thought he was an airplane broker and also that he rented out old anti-aircraft lighting for various promotional events. Her character in the American Made movie is much more aware and suspicious of her husband's activities, stating that she flat out doesn't trust him, which is the opposite of Seal's real-life wife. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. "He would tell me, 'I'm going to such and such places,' and I wouldn't see him for days. I never saw drugs, that's for sure." -Daily Mail Online

Did the zero-gravity love scene really happen?

No. The scene was actually inspired by something that happened while director Doug Liman and Tom Cruise were training for the movie. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," Liman told Vulture . "He put the airplane into a parabolic arc and pinned me against the ceiling, and right in that moment, I had this inspiration. ... Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc and they got pinned against the ceiling?" The movie's zero-g love scene never happened.

Did the cartel really kill Barry Seal's brother-in-law with a car bomb?

No. In the movie, Lucy's brother JB (Caleb Landry Jones) steals money from Barry (Tom Cruise). He carries it around and begins spending it, which attracts the attention of the local authorities. The cartel tells Barry that they'll deal with JB, a suggestion that Barry opposes. Soon after, JB is killed by a car bomb. JB is fictional. The real Barry Seal never had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb.

Is American Made a biopic?

No. "You know, we're not making a biopic," said director Doug Liman. "Tom Cruise doesn't look like Barry Seal. His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." The movie's loose interpretation of the truth is echoed in the trailer when a voice-over by Tom Cruise as Barry Seal tells us that only "some of this sh*t really happened." Liman has referred to the film as "a fun lie based on a true story" ( TIME ). American Made starring Tom Cruise was inspired by various tales about Barry Seal, but the film is not a biopic.

Was Barry Seal as likable as Tom Cruise's American Made character?

Yes, at least according to his wife and others who knew him. "The DEA agents who worked with Barry loved him," said director Doug Liman. "We're talking about one of the largest drug smugglers in America, and these agents loved him." While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. When asked how, he replied, "Oh, Barry stole an airplane from me. He took it out for a test flight and never came back." It turns out Barry flew the plane all the way back to the United States. The man said that despite the incident, he was still very fond of Barry. -Vulture.com Barry Seal was a ballsy and confident risk taker, who rarely acknowledged the possibility of failure, and that's just how Tom Cruise portrays him in the American Made movie. According to author Del Hahn, who wrote the book Smuggler's End , next to Barry's yearbook photo was the description, "Full of fun, full of folly" ( TIME ). Hahn told Vice that Barry was likable but "not as smart and clever as he thought he was."

Does Tom Cruise look like Barry Seal?

No. Fact-checking American Made immediately revealed that Tom Cruise looks nothing like the real Barry Seal, who weighed around 280lbs and was nicknamed "El Gordo" (The Fat Man) by his bosses. -Daily Mail Online The real Barry Seal (left and inset) and actor Tom Cruise (right) look nothing alike.

How was Barry Seal caught?

In researching the American Made true story, we learned that Barry Seal was arrested by customs officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1983 as he tried to smuggle 200,000 units of Quaalude, a recreational drug, into the country. The DEA had been onto him for a long time. If he had in fact been working for the CIA at the time, his connections didn't get him off the hook.

Did Barry Seal offer to become a federal informant to avoid prison time?

Yes. In an effort to reduce or altogether avoid his 10-year prison sentence, Seal first tried to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, volunteering to give up information on the Ochoa family, but the deal was rejected. He then was able to get a meeting with Vice President George H.W. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA eventually took him up on his offer because of his knowledge and connections to the cartel. Seal became a federal informant in March 1984. His cooperation led to many convictions, as well as indictments against Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa, two of the founding members of the Medellín Cartel. Ochoa was arrested in Spain on a U.S. warrant, but due to pressure from the cartel was never extradited to the U.S. -Court Documents (STATE of Louisiana v. Miguel VELEZ, Bernardo Vasquez, and Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz)

As an informant, did Barry Seal really bring back photos and drugs as part of his undercover work?

Yes. Like in the American Made movie, Barry Seal was allowed to fly out of the country and return with illegal drugs that the feds made sure never reached their targets. Concurrently, they had to make sure not to raise the suspicions of the ruthless Colombian drug lords. Undercover cameras installed on Seal's plane captured photos on the tarmac of a Nicaraguan airport. Images like the one earlier on this page show Medellín Cartel boss Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane, nicknamed the Fat Lady. Other photos like the one below show Federico Vaughan (center, striped shirt), a man that Seal claimed was a top aide of Tomas Borge, the Sandinista Minister of the Interior. The White House saw the pictures as proof of the communist Sandinista government's corruption and believed that the photos would help to convince the public of the need to support and arm the rebels (Contras) in Nicaragua. Later, after Seal's cover was suspiciously blown, President Reagan used the photo shown below in a 1986 television address to the nation . -The Independent President Ronald Reagan referenced this photo in a 1986 address to the nation. At center in the striped shirt helping to load drugs onto Seal's plane is Federico Vaughan, believed to be an aide to the Interior Minister of Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

Did Col. Oliver North inadvertently get Barry Seal killed?

Not likely. No other name is perhaps more associated with the Iran-Contra affair than Oliver North, but his involvement in exposing Barry Seal's mission and blowing his cover is unknown and entirely speculation. A July 17, 1984 front-page Washington Times article by Edmund Jacoby described a link between Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the Medellín drug cartel. Jacoby mentioned Seal's mission as evidence, which effectively outed Seal as a government agent. When asked who his source was, Jacoby implied that it was "an aide in the White House" and that Oliver North had the most motivation to release the information. Despite the movie attempting to pin it on North, Jacoby later said that North was not his source and that it was a deceased Special Forces and CIA guy named Ted Lunger, who at the time worked as a staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. "I can state absolutely that Oliver North had nothing to do with my story as far as I knew, or as far as I know today," said Jacoby. Regardless, Jacoby's article led to the abandonment of the final piece of Barry Seal's undercover operation. Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas were going to be arrested at a celebration of Seal's successful cocaine transport. The arrests never happened since Seal's cover was blown. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal

Did the cartel put a contract out on Barry Seal?

Yes. "One day Barry came in and said there was a contract on him - half a million dead, a million alive," says widow Debbie Seal. "He thought we had more time. I guess he also thought Colombians would stick out like a sore thumb in Louisiana and they wouldn't come here." It is believed that the Colombians put a hit out on Barry after they learned he was going to help the feds with the extradition of Jorge Ochoa from Spain, one of the heads of the Medellín Cartel. Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. -Daily Mail Online

Why wasn't Barry Seal forced into witness protection?

Author Del Hahn, a former FBI agent who wrote the book about Seal titled Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal , told Vice , "Seal thought he was smarter and cleverer than the Ochoas," who are one of the founding families of the Medellín Cartel. He wasn't. Barry Seal's widow, Debbie Seal, and others have wondered why the government didn't do more to protect Seal, whether he wanted the protection or not. Conspiracy theorists have gone as far as suggesting that the government ordered the hit on Seal, not the cartel, a suggestion that has never been supported by any proof.

Was Barry Seal assassinated in a parking lot?

Yes. The assassination happened on February 19, 1986 in the parking lot in front of the Salvation Army building on Airline Highway (U.S. 61) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As part of his reduced sentence, the judge had ordered Barry to spend his nights, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., at a Salvation Army halfway house for six months. Barry arrived that evening at approximately 6 p.m. and backed his white Cadillac into a parking space. He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. As Barry opened the driver's side door to get out of the car, the gunman rushed from behind the drop box and fired a .45 caliber Mac-10 machine gun, hitting Barry in the head and body several times. The gunman hurried into a waiting Buick, which sped away. The gunman was later identified as Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz. Miguel Velez was the man driving the getaway car. Three Colombians supposedly sent by the Ochoas, including Cruz and Velez, were later arrested at the airport. They were all sentenced to life in prison. -Court Documents The 2016 Bryan Cranston movie The Infiltrator also depicts Barry Seal's assassination, but it is historically inaccurate. That film finds Seal (portrayed by Michael Paré) being assassinated in a motorcycle drive-by shooting while he is driving and Robert Mazur (Cranston) is his passenger.

Does director Doug Liman have ties to the true story?

Yes. While exploring the real-life story behind the movie, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. Arthur, the chief council, investigated the CIA and questioned Col. Oliver North, who is depicted in American Made . Doug Liman had previously modeled Chris Cooper's villain in The Bourne Identity after North, which reveals Liman's feelings about the controversial figure North. -Vulture.com

Did Tom Cruise do all of his own flying in the movie?

Yes. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself ( Vulture.com ). Tom Cruise got his pilot's license in 1994. "I fly airplanes. I'm a multi-engine, instrument-rated commercial pilot," Cruise said in a Wired interview. "Doug and I are both aviators, so we both love to fly."

How does Barry Seal's family feel about the movie?

Not all of Barry Seal's heirs were happy with the making of the movie. Lisa Seal Frigon, Barry's daughter from his first marriage, sued Universal, claiming that the studio should have purchased Barry's life rights from her, not his third wife Deborah who they paid $350,000. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot.

Were two pilots killed during the making of American Made ?

Yes. Just prior to the movie's release, news broke that the family of deceased stunt pilot Alan Purwin was suing American Made 's producers for wrongful death. Purwin was a passenger in a plane that went down, killing both Purwin and Venezuelan pilot Carlos Berl. The accident didn't happen during filming. The lawsuit claims that the pilots were overworked and that the crash happened after a 12-hour workday. In court documents, the family alleged that "lapses in planning, coordinating, scheduling, and flight safety" contributed to the fatal crash in the mountains of Colombia. They also claimed that the pilot who died lacked the necessary experience for the flight. -Good Morning America

Watch an interview with the real Barry Seal where he discusses his undercover mission, and listen to President Ronald Reagan talk about the photos Seal obtained on the mission. Also, view a news story about Barry Seal's death.

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What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in American Made

Like The Wolf of Wall Street , American Made is based on the real-life exploits of a “lovable” rogue, Barry Seal. Also like TWWS , it gets us rooting for our hero despite his engaging in morally questionable, not to mention illegal, activities like gun-running and drug smuggling. To win us over, it uses many of the same techniques employed by TWWS : having our dubious hero played by an extremely charismatic star, in this case Tom Cruise, fully at home in the cockpit as another cocksure pilot; giving him a gorgeous blonde wife and adorable children for whom he’s doing it all; and, that standby of engaging villains from Richard III to House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, breaking the fourth wall with confessions directly into the camera, thus making us co-conspirators.

Plus, director Doug Liman and screenwriter Gary Spinelli streamline the story to suggest Seal had rather less agency in becoming a career criminal than the actual facts would indicate.

Recruitment

In the movie, Seal is an ace pilot whose daredevil streak leads him from TWA to the CIA. He’s bored rigid flying commercial flights, so he takes to performing stunts that trigger the oxygen masks and terrify passengers. His aviation skills and reputation for sailing close to the wind lead to an approach from Schafer, a CIA agent (or possibly a composite of several) played by Domhnall Gleeson (whose father, actor Brendan Gleeson, resembles the stocky real Seal much more than sleek Tom Cruise does). Schafer recruits Seal to take reconnaissance photos of guerillas operating in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, wooing him with a super-fast, super-nimble twin engine plane.

The real-life Seal seems to have joined up with the CIA much earlier. The late investigative journalist Alexander Cockburn contended that Seal first came into contact with the CIA in the ’60s as a special forces helicopter pilot in Vietnam and maintained links with them throughout his TWA years. Other accounts suggest his links might have gone back as far as the Bay of Pigs. Moreover, although the film suggests Seal was just an excitement-loving pilot who got swept up into espionage at the time, eight years earlier he had been attempting to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to some anti-Castro Cubans based in Mexico when he was arrested by the U.S. Customs Service . And far from resigning from TWA in 1978 to pursue this new, more exciting career in spying, he was fired in 1974 for falsely claiming medical leave when actually he was absent due to weapons trafficking. He escaped prosecution only because the CIA intervened, stating a trial would threaten national security.

Guerrilla reconnaissance

As a good ol’ boy from Louisiana, Seal readily accepts that the rationale for taking photographs is “fightin’ communists,” and the filmmakers don’t provide much context for this assessment.

In real life, of course, one person’s communist insurgent is another person’s freedom fighter. While certainly left-wing and receiving aid and training from Cuba, the guerrilla movements in these Central American countries were primarily a reaction to brutal dictatorships and, as a 1983 presidential commission reported , “decades of poverty, bloody repression, and frustrated efforts at bringing about political reform.” Oliver Stone’s kind-of based-on-true-events Salvador (1986) gives a view of the conflict from the other side.

Enter the Medellín

2017 Universal Studios, Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

In American Made , Seal is just minding his own business refueling his plane in Colombia in 1980 when he is bundled into a car and taken to a hidden airstrip in the Colombian jungle. There he is made an offer he can’t refuse by three “businessmen” (one named Pablo Escobar) in need of a pilot with the skills to navigate the dangerously short runway. Already feeling undercompensated by the CIA for the loss of his TWA pension and health care, Seal is swayed by the promise of $2,000 per kilo of cocaine brought to the U.S.

In real life, according to statements in his Drug Enforcement Administration file, Seal was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976 and began smuggling cocaine in 1978, well before any contact with the cartel.

Arrested in Colombia

The film has Seal becoming buddies with cartel kingpins Escobar and Ochoa after forming a lucrative partnership and partying with them at their penthouse in Cartagena, at least until the party is broken up by the Colombian Army. The kingpins, plus Seal, are thrown in jail, but while the Colombians walk free the next day, Seal remains incarcerated until Schafer gets him out. The agent later warns Seal that the smuggler has to get himself and his family out of Baton Rouge before sunrise in order to avoid a police raid and arranges for them to relocate to remote Mena, Arkansas, where the agency provides Seal with not only a house but also an airfield.

In reality, Seal was arrested with 40 kilograms of cocaine and spent nine months in a Honduran jail. There he met Ochoa’s New Orleans business manager, who brought Seal into the Medellín cartel’s orbit in 1982. He became its chief link to cocaine markets in the southeastern U.S., with his 1981 bank records showing daily deposits of $50,000 into a Bahamian bank. Also, he moved to Mena of his own accord in 1982.

Supporting the Contras

In the movie, in return for his get out of jail free card, Schafer wants Seal to fly AK-47s out of Mena to the Contras, the insurgent group tasked with overthrowing the Sandinistas, the leftwing movement that itself overthrew the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979 and took his place. Then Schafer ups the ante by requiring Seal to return bearing Contras who will be trained in Mena. Meanwhile, Seal’s old pals Ochoa and Escobar suggest he drop off some of his guns in Colombia and resume bringing in cocaine on the return trip.

It is certainly true that Seal’s planes (by now he had a fleet) flew from Mena to Colombia, making refueling stops in Panama and Honduras (where the Contras were training) before returning laden with approximately $13 million worth of drugs.

Cockburn, among several other journalists and historians, also alleged that a quid pro quo existed, with the CIA turning a blind eye to Seal’s drug smuggling in return for his using it as cover to get weapons to the Contras. Further, there are allegations that Seal bought several of his planes from CIA-owned companies such as Air America (itself the subject of Roger Spottiswoode’s 1990 movie of the same name ) and Southern Air Transport.

The main source for the allegations that the Contras were brought for training in Arkansas is a book by a former Seal pilot named Terry Reed. However, many of those named in the book have disputed his account, with one bringing suit for libel.

In the film’s telling, the CIA abandoned Seal—getting rid of any paper trail or hard evidence that could link them to the smuggler—right before the ATF and the DEA and the FBI and the state police raid the Mena airport. Seal is charged in Arkansas with weapons, drug, and money-laundering offenses, but gets off with a community service order and is whisked off to the White House.

In reality, the DEA busted Seal for smuggling 200,000 Quaaludes into Florida in 1983. Facing a 10-year stretch, he was desperate to make a deal, but the DEA wasn’t interested. Going over their heads, he met with two members of then–Vice President George H.W. Bush’s Task Force on Drugs, offering his services as an undercover informant. Lured by the promise of getting inside information on the Medellín cartel, in March 1984 the DEA listed Seal as an official informant and got his sentence reduced.

What happened next is murky. According to Robert Joura, the DEA agent working with Seal, on the next pickup either Escobar or Ochoa told Seal the cartel was moving its base from Colombia to Nicaragua and giving a cut of its profits to the Sandinistas in exchange for use of an airfield in Managua.

But given that the cartel was operating more or less with impunity everywhere else in Central America and this would only further antagonize the U.S., another theory suggests this was a scheme cooked up by Seal and Ochoa to keep Seal on the good side of the intelligence community. At any rate, Seal went to Florida to face long-delayed sentencing on his Quaalude bust, receiving 10 years reduced to six months’ probation thanks to letters of support from the CIA and DEA.

Enter Oliver North

At this point, American Made introduces the controversial figure of Lt. Col. Oliver North, Reagan’s point man on anti-Sandinista activities, who is keen to give Seal one more mission: to obtain proof the Nicaraguan government is in bed with the cartel. To this end, they modify his new former Army C-123 transport plane so that he can take photographs unobtrusively.

Seal flies to Managua and duly obtains pictures of Escobar and Sandinista soldiers taking delivery of kilos of cocaine. But in his haste to nail the commies so that Congress will fund arms shipments, North releases the pictures before the Colombians are in custody. His cover blown, Seal is of no further use to the DEA, who promptly seize his assets. Worse, he must spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for a vengeful cartel.

In real life, Seal’s cover was blown even before the photographs appeared when, thanks to NSC and CIA leaks, the Washington Times ran a front-page story on the Sandinistas’ drug trafficking on July 17, 1984. But Congress was not persuaded and passed the Boland amendment prohibiting direct military aid to the Contras.

This meant that North still needed Seal to run guns for his operation, until the pilot was busted again in December 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for smuggling marijuana. Thanks to testifying in three major drug trials over the next year that helped obtain convictions, he got off with five years’ probation along with six months at a local halfway house. Aftermath and death

As in the movie, three men shot Seal to death as he sat outside a Salvation Army in Baton Rouge in his white Cadillac. He died on Feb. 19, 1986, and three Colombian men were convicted of his murder .

After Seal’s death, a 1986–1989 Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation popularly known as the Kerry Committee report found that the State Department had made payments to known drug traffickers from funds earmarked for Contra humanitarian assistance. (Arthur L. Liman, the director’s father, was the chief counsel for the Senate investigation, which is what got the filmmaker interested in Iran–Contra in the first place .) The Reagan administration admitted that funds from cocaine smuggling had helped fund the Contras but insisted it was a rogue operation carried out without the government’s knowledge.

Even if some of the specifics vary, the film is true to two essential elements of Seal’s story. One, he made a hell of a lot of money—estimates range from $50 million (Seal himself) to $5 billion (Arkansas State Police investigators). In any case, it all seems to have disappeared. Secondly, Seal was a man caught between a rock and a hard place. As his brother Wendell said , he had become entangled in so many relationships “it was hard to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.”

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One hundred and thirty-three years of editorial freedom

In ‘American Made,’ Tom Cruise mingles with Noriega, Escobar and the Sandinistas

Review: ‘American Made’ Has Tom Cruise. And Lies, Spies and Coke.

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By Manohla Dargis

Sept. 28, 2017

The tagline for “American Made,” a breezily, at times woozily rollicking Tom Cruise vehicle, announces that it is “based on a true lie” — though the movie also asserts that it is based on a true story. But who’s quibbling? This is, after all, a Hollywood fantasy starring Mr. Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life smuggler. An enigma with multiple chins, Mr. Seal was apparently known as El Gordo (the Fat Man), a name he may have picked up while working for a drug cartel, the C.I.A. or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

It can be hard to keep tabs on the movie’s Barry, a pilot who racks up lots of miles while serving different masters. When the story opens, he is flying for T.W.A. and bored out of his evidently simple, rather dangerously restless mind. On the job, he amuses himself by flipping a few switches, jerking the controls and abruptly awakening sleeping passengers. His life takes a wild turn when a shady C.I.A. smiler, Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), makes Barry an offer to help his country or something. Before long, Barry is cozying up to Pablo Escobar and smuggling cocaine and AK-47s across the Americas. Every so often, he drops into Panama to swap packages with that country’s strongman, Manuel Noriega.

This kind of secret world is familiar terrain for the director Doug Liman, who kick-started the “Bourne” spy franchise and directed “ Fair Game ,” a fictional take on some real-world intrigue involving Valerie Plame Wilson , a former C.I.A. officer, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a onetime diplomat. “American Made,” in its self-amused tone and skittering rhythms, though, is closer to the thriller “ Edge of Tomorrow ,” Mr. Liman and Mr. Cruise’s movie about a man — a wrong-guy, wrong-place type — who dies to live another day only to die (repeat). Mr. Liman likes playing with Mr. Cruise’s persona, say, by messing up that famous smile, and he clearly likes letting his star strut and glide.

Mr. Liman also likes stories about people with secret selves. Maybe it’s an interest he picked up from his father, Arthur L. Liman , who was the chief counsel to the Senate committee during its 1987 Iran-contra investigation. The real Mr. Seal may have played a jaw-droppingly outlandish role in that notorious affair, which, among many other byzantine turns, involved the National Security Council funneling aid to the Nicaraguan contras. The scandal encompassed a vast cast of characters that included President Ronald Reagan and Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North. A few show up in “American Made” either as fictionalized supporting characters or as themselves, smiling and slinking in archival images.

Written by Gary Spinelli, “American Made” goes down easily, especially if you don’t let the historical record with its real-world stakes bother you. Mr. Cruise’s brisk, ingratiating performance — all smiles, hard-charging physicality and beads of sweat — does a lot to soften the edges. But Mr. Liman doesn’t press Mr. Cruise to dig into the character, and the actor mostly hurdles forward in a movie that never gets around to asking what makes Barry run and why. So Barry just runs and he flies and he flies some more, delivering coke and accumulating suitcases of cash that he buries and stashes in closets. (It’s hard not to think that Mr. Cruise signed on to the movie so he could do all his own flying.)

There’s a lot going for “American Made,” which spins like a top and has the visually beguiling, somewhat jaundiced look of a faded old Polaroid. So it’s too bad that Mr. Liman himself didn’t burrow in here as a filmmaker. The real Mr. Seal has been both the main and side attraction in many articles, books, documentaries and hard-core propaganda flicks, including some hinged on the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex which emerged during the Clinton presidency. Mr. Seal was also the subject of “Doublecrossed,” a 1991 HBO docudrama starring Dennis Hopper (which is vaguely amusing if only because Mr. Hopper played a very different coke smuggler in “ Easy Rider ”).

“American Made” encourages and earns your laughter, although it also provokes skepticism, particularly in its attempt to portray Barry as a picaresque hero, one of those rogues tumbling and swaggering from adventure to adventure in a world that’s more corrupt than they are. After all, it asks, how bad can Barry really be, especially given the company he keeps? He doesn’t kill anyone, not exactly, and he’s nice to his wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright Olsen), and their kids. A slightly downscale version of Margot Robbie’s character in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Lucy has a few tangy moments, but she and the kids mostly enhance the visual design, much like the period cars and costumes.

There are moments when it feels as if Mr. Liman’s breakneck pacing is partly an attempt to distract us, to keep us from looking or thinking too hard about the grotesquely corrupt circus parading onscreen. Mr. Cruise’s performance often seems similarly calculated. Barry likes to leap before he thinks: “All this is legal?” he asks, scarcely pausing before plunging into the fray — and Mr. Cruise regularly widens his eyes in what seems to be an effort to convey Barry’s incredulity. It’s dissembling that is about as convincing as the Wolf leering in granny’s nightie. In truth, this Barry is just another ugly American, a happy hustler with a what-me-worry smile and a foot planted on another man’s throat.

American Made Rated R for very bad behavior. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

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AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

Low flying and high adventure in the true crime movie american made.

Wherein Tom Cruise uses his pilot’s license while on the job.

The new movie American Made, which opens today, is not a documentary. Director Doug Liman, whose credits include The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow, calls it “a fun lie based on a true story.” But the broad strokes of this low-altitude tall tale are factual: Barry Seal was a former TWA pilot who was recruited by the CIA, and he continued to work for the agency even after he became a smuggler for Colombian “King of Cocaine” Pablo Escobar. His concurrent careers in aviation, spycraft, and narcotrafficking came to an abrupt end when he was murdered in 1986.

The real Seal looked more like Beau Bridges than Tom Cruise, his Hollywood alter-ego. And although some of the film was shot on location in Colombia, that country also doubles for Panama, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, as Seal becomes more involved in the shadow war in Central America during the mid-80s. The small town of Ball Ground, Georgia, and its nearby Cherokee County Airport, stand in for Mena, Arkansas and other locations.

American Made strives for verisimilitude in one other way: Liman, who, like his star, is a pilot, says that Cruise performed the flying scenes in a six-seat Piper Aerostar 600 and a Cessna 414 himself. Cruise, who is well-known for performing outlandish stunts in his films, is listed deep in the film’s credits as the “Aerostar and Cessna Stunt Pilot,” followed by stunt pilots Jimmy Garland and Alan Purwin.

Those two figured in a tragedy while American Made was in production . Purwin was killed and Garland severely injured when the Aerostar they were flying in crashed during a flight from Santa Fe de Antioquia to Medellín in September 2015. Passenger Carlos Berl also died in the accident, which did not occur during filming. The families of both victims are suing American Made ’s various financiers, alleging negligence and lax safety procedures. The movie’s credited aerial coordinator is Fred North, a veteran helicopter pilot who has worked behind the scenes on dozens of film productions over the last 20 years, and who appears on-camera as a pilot in several movies, including the 2016 blockbuster Captain America: Civil War and Deepwater Horizon .

Also seen briefly in the film is a Fairchild C-123K Provider transport aircraft the producers obtained from the Air Heritage Museum in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. This particular aircraft served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 until it was declared surplus in 1985. In real life, a C-123 carrying a shipment of AK-47s and other small arms intended for Contra fighters was shot down over Nicaragua by a Sandinista armed with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile in October 1986. CIA pilots Wallace “Buzz” Sawyer and William Cooper died in that crash. The subsequent Iran-Contra scandal brought to light that the American spy agency had been covertly supplying arms and supplies to the Contras.

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Tom Cruise Movies List

Movies or TV
IMDb Rating
In Theaters
Release Year

1. Endless Love (1981)

R | 116 min | Drama, Romance

Parental disapproval of a passionate romance between two teenagers leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy.

Director: Franco Zeffirelli | Stars: Brooke Shields , Martin Hewitt , Shirley Knight , Don Murray

Votes: 9,574 | Gross: $31.18M

2. Taps (I) (1981)

PG | 126 min | Drama

Military cadets take extreme measures to ensure the future of their academy when its existence is threatened by local condo developers.

Director: Harold Becker | Stars: George C. Scott , Timothy Hutton , Ronny Cox , Sean Penn

Votes: 20,089 | Gross: $35.86M

3. The Outsiders (1983)

PG | 91 min | Crime, Drama

In a small Oklahoma town in 1964, the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: C. Thomas Howell , Matt Dillon , Ralph Macchio , Patrick Swayze

Votes: 97,474 | Gross: $25.60M

4. Losin' It (1982)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

Set in 1965, four rowdy teenage guys travel to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of partying when they are joined by a heartbroken housewife who is in town seeking a quick divorce.

Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jackie Earle Haley , John Stockwell , John P. Navin Jr.

Votes: 5,226 | Gross: $1.25M

5. All the Right Moves (1983)

R | 91 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

An ambitious young football star is trapped in a dying mill town--unless his gridiron skills can win him a way out.

Director: Michael Chapman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Lea Thompson , Craig T. Nelson , Charles Cioffi

Votes: 20,393 | Gross: $17.23M

6. Risky Business (1983)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand.

Director: Paul Brickman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Rebecca De Mornay , Joe Pantoliano , Richard Masur

Votes: 99,793 | Gross: $63.50M

7. Legend (1985)

PG | 94 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

A young man must stop the Lord of Darkness from destroying daylight and marrying the woman he loves.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Mia Sara , Tim Curry , David Bennent

Votes: 72,441 | Gross: $15.50M

8. Top Gun (1986)

PG | 109 min | Action, Drama

As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Tim Robbins , Kelly McGillis , Val Kilmer

Votes: 502,383 | Gross: $179.80M

9. The Color of Money (1986)

R | 119 min | Drama, Sport

Fast Eddie Felson teaches a cocky but immensely talented protégé the ropes of pool hustling, which in turn inspires him to make an unlikely comeback.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Paul Newman , Tom Cruise , Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio , Helen Shaver

Votes: 93,238 | Gross: $52.29M

10. Cocktail (1988)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A talented New York City bartender takes a job at a bar in Jamaica and falls in love.

Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Brown , Elisabeth Shue , Lisa Banes

Votes: 91,824 | Gross: $78.22M

11. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Dustin Hoffman , Tom Cruise , Valeria Golino , Gerald R. Molen

Votes: 546,426 | Gross: $178.80M

12. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War

The biography of Ron Kovic . Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country for which he fought.

Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bryan Larkin , Raymond J. Barry , Caroline Kava

Votes: 115,897 | Gross: $70.00M

13. Days of Thunder (1990)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Drama, Sport

A young hot-shot stock car driver gets his chance to compete at the top level.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Robert Duvall , Randy Quaid

Votes: 96,371 | Gross: $82.67M

14. A Few Good Men (1992)

R | 138 min | Drama, Thriller

Military lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder. They contend they were acting under orders.

Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jack Nicholson , Demi Moore , Kevin Bacon

Votes: 287,228 | Gross: $141.34M

15. The Firm (1993)

R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.

Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeanne Tripplehorn , Gene Hackman , Hal Holbrook

Votes: 147,651 | Gross: $158.35M

16. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

R | 123 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Brad Pitt , Tom Cruise , Antonio Banderas , Kirsten Dunst

Votes: 347,324 | Gross: $105.26M

17. Mission: Impossible (1996)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jon Voight , Emmanuelle Béart , Henry Czerny

Votes: 470,155 | Gross: $180.98M

18. Jerry Maguire (1996)

R | 139 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent agent with the only athlete who stays with him and his former colleague.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cuba Gooding Jr. , Renée Zellweger , Kelly Preston

Votes: 286,946 | Gross: $153.95M

19. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

R | 159 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Nicole Kidman , Todd Field , Sydney Pollack

Votes: 374,953 | Gross: $55.69M

20. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jason Robards , Julianne Moore , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 328,385 | Gross: $22.46M

21. Mission: Impossible II (2000)

PG-13 | 123 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt is sent to Sydney to find and destroy a genetically modified disease called "Chimera".

Director: John Woo | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dougray Scott , Thandiwe Newton , Ving Rhames

Votes: 377,588 | Gross: $215.41M

22. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)

Not Rated | 142 min | Documentary, Biography

The career and life of Stanley Kubrick is explored through pictures, clips from his films, his old home movies, comments from his colleagues and a narration by Tom Cruise .

Director: Jan Harlan | Stars: Katharina Kubrick , Malcolm McDowell , Stanley Kubrick , Barbara Kroner

Votes: 12,203

23. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Penélope Cruz , Cameron Diaz , Kurt Russell

Votes: 285,619 | Gross: $100.61M

24. Space Station 3D (2002)

Not Rated | 47 min | Documentary

From outer space countries don't exist.

Director: Toni Myers | Stars: Tom Cruise , James Arnold , Michael J. Bloomfield , Robert D. Cabana

Votes: 1,749 | Gross: $93.37M

25. Minority Report (2002)

PG-13 | 145 min | Action, Crime, Mystery

John works with the PreCrime police which stop crimes before they take place, with the help of three 'PreCogs' who can foresee crimes. Events ensue when John finds himself framed for a future murder.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Colin Farrell , Samantha Morton , Max von Sydow

Votes: 584,177 | Gross: $132.07M

26. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

PG-13 | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin Powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly named villain Goldmember, who is working with Dr. Evil.

Director: Jay Roach | Stars: Mike Myers , Beyoncé , Seth Green , Michael York

Votes: 222,852 | Gross: $213.31M

27. The Last Samurai (2003)

R | 154 min | Action, Drama

Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Tom Cruise , Ken Watanabe , Billy Connolly , William Atherton

Votes: 470,894 | Gross: $111.11M

28. Collateral (2004)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles.

Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jamie Foxx , Jada Pinkett Smith , Mark Ruffalo

Votes: 432,980 | Gross: $101.01M

29. War of the Worlds (2005)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

An alien invasion threatens the future of humanity. The catastrophic nightmare is depicted through the eyes of one American family fighting for survival.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Tom Cruise , Dakota Fanning , Tim Robbins , Miranda Otto

Votes: 475,068 | Gross: $234.28M

30. Mission: Impossible III (2006)

PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

IMF agent Ethan Hunt comes into conflict with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer who threatens his life and his fiancée in response.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Tom Cruise , Michelle Monaghan , Ving Rhames , Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 390,628 | Gross: $134.03M

31. Lions for Lambs (2007)

R | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

Injuries sustained by two Army rangers behind enemy lines in Afghanistan set off a sequence of events involving a congressman, a journalist and a professor.

Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Tom Cruise , Meryl Streep , Robert Redford , Michael Peña

Votes: 52,692 | Gross: $15.00M

32. Valkyrie (2008)

PG-13 | 121 min | Drama, History, Thriller

A dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Tom Cruise , Bill Nighy , Carice van Houten , Kenneth Branagh

Votes: 259,184 | Gross: $83.08M

33. Tropic Thunder (2008)

R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, War

Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.

Director: Ben Stiller | Stars: Ben Stiller , Jack Black , Robert Downey Jr. , Jeff Kahn

Votes: 447,869 | Gross: $110.52M

34. Knight and Day (2010)

PG-13 | 109 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

A young woman gets mixed up with a disgraced spy who is trying to clear his name.

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Tom Cruise , Cameron Diaz , Peter Sarsgaard , Jordi Mollà

Votes: 210,288 | Gross: $76.42M

35. Takers (2010)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A group of bank robbers find their multi-million dollar plan interrupted by a hard-boiled detective.

Director: John Luessenhop | Stars: Chris Brown , Hayden Christensen , Matt Dillon , Michael Ealy

Votes: 65,774 | Gross: $57.74M

36. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller

The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.

Director: Brad Bird | Stars: Tom Cruise , Jeremy Renner , Simon Pegg , Paula Patton

Votes: 528,315 | Gross: $209.40M

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Tom Cruise: All New Movies Coming Out in 2023 and 2024

After his breakthrough with leading roles in ‘Risky Business’ and ‘ Top Gun ‘ in the 1980s, Thomas “Tom” Cruise Mapother IV started bagging pivotal roles in several dramas, including ‘ Born on the Fourth of July ,’ for which he even won a Golden Globe Award and got nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the 1990s, he rose to newer heights of stardom by featuring in various commercially successful films, such as ‘ A Few Good Men ,’ ‘ Interview with the Vampire ,’ ‘The Firm,’ and ‘ Jerry Maguire .’

Once he impacted dramas, he started traversing the action and sci-fi genres. By landing some iconic roles in the ‘ Mission: Impossible ‘ film series, ‘ Collateral ,’ ‘ Edge of Tomorrow ,’ and ‘ Top Gun: Maverick ,’ he established himself as an action star, performing most of the risky stunts on his own. The winner of three Golden Globe Awards, four nominations for the Oscars, and an Honorary Palme d’Or, Tom Cruise is known to be one of the world’s highest-paid actors. Given his immense popularity and fandom, most of our readers are looking forward to his future projects. Here is a list of all the upcoming movies and TV shows of Tom Cruise!

1. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two (2024)

Tom Cruise recently jumped off a cliff on a motorbike for ‘ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ‘ and he will be in action soon enough in its sequel, ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.’ Helmed by Christopher McQuarrie, the spy action movie is the eighth installment in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ film series with Cruise reprising his role as Ethan Hunt for the eighth time running.

Although the plot details are kept under wraps, the action-adventure film is most likely to resume Ethan’s hunt for The Entity as he meets some new friends and foes along the way. The production for the sequel began in March 2022 but is yet to be finished due to the delay caused by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Having gone through several postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to its release date, it is now officially set to be released on June 28, 2024. But it is very much possible that it will get postponed again due to the pause in production.

2. Untitled Tom Cruise/SpaceX Project (TBA)

Tom Cruise is set to take his status as an action star to the next level by traveling out of Earth to film the first ever Hollywood motion picture in outer space. In May 2020, it was reported that Elon Musk’s Space X and Cruise were working on an action-adventure project with NASA. Not only is Cruise expected to be blasted into space alongside filmmaker Doug Liman, with whom he has previously worked in ‘ American Made ‘ and ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ for the upcoming film, but he will also live up to his reputation by attempting to do a space walk outside of the International Space Station. In this movie, Cruise is set to essay the role of a down-on-his-luck man who is the sole person in the position to save Earth. Apart from starring in the film, he is attached to the project as a writer as well as a producer.

3. Live Die Repeat and Repeat (TBA)

A sequel to the 2014 movie ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat’ is an upcoming science fiction film that will reportedly reunite Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman, with the former set to reprise his role as Major William Cage. Moreover, Emily Blunt is also rumored to portray Rita again, alongside Cruise. Ever since the release of the hit original film, talks of a sequel have been flying around. However, in 2019, it was finally set in motion when Matthew Robinson was brought on to write the script.

Fast forward to a couple of years later, in a May 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly , Emily Blunt revealed, “That was an amazing script, but I just don’t know what the future holds for it. I did read a script that was in really great shape, but it’s just a matter of if that can even happen now. I don’t have the straight answer on that one.” With the project still lingering in the development stage, it is hard to expect it to be brought to life in at least a couple of years.

The Tom Cruise Role That Was Written With Tom Hanks in Mind

A tale of two Toms.

The Big Picture

Tom Cruise showed a surprisingly seasoned and thoughtful approach to his film choices in the 1990s, working with prestigious directors on risky projects.
Cameron Crowe originally wrote the role of Jerry Maguire with Tom Hanks in mind, but Hanks declined, giving Cruise the opportunity to showcase vulnerability in his performance.
Cruise's comedic vulnerability in films like Risky Business and All the Right Moves proved that he could handle romantic roles, and Jerry Maguire showcased his ability to deliver surprising and powerful moments in a rom-com setting.

Tom Cruise is most closely associated with the action genre these days due to the success of Top Gun and Mission: Impossible , but in the 1990s, it seemed like he made it a goal to work with nearly every great filmmaker on a prestige project. Between Sydney Pollack ’s The Firm , Rob Reiner ’s A Few Good Men , Neil Jordan ’s Interview with the Vampire , and Stanley Kubrick ’s Eyes Wide Shut , Cruise showed a surprising amount of discretion in the risky projects that he joined. Ironically, the role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor was Cameron Crowe ’s Jerry Maguire , which was a mainstream success and audience favorite. The film gave Cruise some of the most endearing, iconic, and hilarious moments of his entire filmography, but it wasn’t a role that was originally written with him in mind.

Jerry Maguire

Cameron crowe wrote ‘jerry maguire’ for tom hanks.

Crowe is among the foremost directors of romantic comedies, as his films tend to go beyond simply being crowd-pleasers to say something powerful about the nature of love, and what it means to be in a relationship. While he had proven his competence within the genre with the 1989 coming-of-age dramedy Say Anything and the ensemble project Singles , Jerry Maguire was arguably his most ambitious project to date. It was the type of film that relied upon an established movie star to show vulnerability, and Crowe had his sights set on which A-Lister he wanted in the role of the titular sports agent.

In 2017, Crowe told NBC Sports that the role “was originally written with Tom Hanks in mind,” and that he “had this wonderful conversation with Tom Hanks, and people were waiting in the next room for the answer.” Crowe found that he was “high on the Tom Hanks personality charisma.” However, Hanks was busy working on his directorial effort That Thing You Do! , and could not commit to Crowe’s project. Hanks would later joke that he “would like to think, however, that Tom Cruise owes me one dollar, and I’m still waiting for the check.”

Cruise was very complimentary of Hanks , stating that “as a fan of his, I would have been very interested to see what he would have done with that character.” However, Cruise was keen to note that he put significant effort into ensuring that the role could become his own. Cruise said that he “spent nine months with Cameron going back and forth developing” the characterization of Jerry. While the work that Cruise puts into the physical stunts within his action films is evident to anyone that watches them, the efforts he took to develop such a complex character were more subtle.

'Jerry Maguire' Lets Tom Cruise Get Vulnerable

On paper, Hanks seemed like a more obvious choice for the role. While he had a newfound prestige thanks to his back-to-back Academy Award wins for Best Actor in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump , he was still at his core a comedic actor that had shown his aptitude within the rom-com genre. Romantic comedies were huge in the ‘90s, but his collaborations with Meg Ryan in the films Joe Versus the Volcano , You’ve Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle were among the best. However, Hanks’ refusal gave Cruise the chance to give an uncharacteristically vulnerable performance that pushed him as an actor.

Tom Cruise Inspired Christian Bale's Performance in 'American Psycho'

Tom Cruise tends to take on drama roles and isn't generally associated with comedy, but he’s proven on more than one occasion that he’s much funnier than some of his fans might expect. Outside his iconic cameos in Tropic Thunder and Austin Powers in Goldmember , Cruise showed a comedic vulnerability in his early films Risky Business and All the Right Moves . In both films, he plays a teenager who bites off more than they can chew, and they end up making a lot of ill-advised decisions for the sake of what they perceive to be true love. These films showed that Cruise was willing to make himself the butt of a joke, and didn’t have the ego that he’s sometimes associated with. However, these skills were set aside in the immediate aftermath as Cruise focused on films with a more serious edge to them .

'Jerry Maguire' Is Proof That Tom Cruise Should Do More Romantic Movies

That level of vulnerability is something Hanks has utilized throughout his career, and a reason why his romantic comedies with Ryan are so endearing to this day. It makes perfect sense why he would have been someone that Crowe had in mind, but casting Cruise forced the Mission: Impossible star to show that same romantic vulnerability that had been absent in his filmography since the late 1980s. It was a choice that ended up making Jerry Maguire more surprising. Audiences would expect to see Hanks pouring out his heart to Renée Zellweger about how he feels, but seeing Cruise do it came as a shock, making the “you complete me” moment even more powerful.

When Jerry sets forth with his ambitious mission statement regarding his intentions for his company, it feels like his breakthrough will be accepted automatically, so it’s hilarious when his speech is met with a collective shrug from his co-workers. However, seeing Cruise descend into madness as Jerry digs himself deeper by ranting (and even stealing a fish) results in one of the funniest moments in the entire film. These sorts of physical gags are something that Hanks has done all the time, but Cruise had to show a wacky side of his personality that he hadn’t accessed since his adolescent roles.

Cruise continues to push the boundaries of his physicality as recently as 2023's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , and he’ll be doing the same thing for the next installment. However, Cruise is also 61 years old, and can’t be doing action films forever. Perhaps choosing to go back to the romantic comedy genre for the first time since Jerry Maguire would be the best choice for Cruise to prove that, even after all these years, he’s still one of the greatest movie stars in the world.

Jerry Maguire is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

Rent on Prime Video

IMAGES

Watch: Tom Cruise picks on Pablo Escobar in first American Made trailer
Tom Cruise films Pablo Escobar movie in replica of twin-engine Aerostar
Com Tom Cruise, filme sobre piloto americano que trabalhou para Pablo
Tom Cruise mano a mano con Pablo Escobar l RTVE
Tom Cruise films Pablo Escobar movie in replica of twin-engine Aerostar
Tom Cruise films Pablo Escobar movie in replica of twin-engine Aerostar

COMMENTS

American Made (2017)
American Made: Directed by Doug Liman. With Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons. The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.
American Made (film)
American Made is a 2017 American action comedy film directed by Doug Liman, written by Gary Spinelli, and starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Alejandro Edda, Mauricio Mejía, Caleb Landry Jones, and Jesse Plemons. It is inspired by the life of Barry Seal, a former TWA pilot who flew missions for the CIA, and became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s.
American Made (2017)
Synopsis. Set in the year 1978, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works as a pilot for Trans World Airlines. He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. While at a bar one night, Barry is found by a man saying his name is Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). He is familiar with Barry's work as a pilot, but ...
American Made
After making a deal with the DEA, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and Pete (William Mark McCullough) to get photographic evidence against Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mei...
American Made
Tom Cruise completely carries American Made as the sleazy, stupid, greedy, and gullible pilot Barry Seal, who flew guns for the CIA and drugs for Pablo Escobar's Colombian Cartel throughout the ...
American Made movie review & film summary (2017)
Cruise's smile is, in this context, deployed like a weapon in Liman and Spinelli's overwhelming charm offensive. You don't get a lot of psychological insight into Barry's character, or learn why he was so determined to make more money than he could spend, despite conflicting pressures from Pablo Escobar's drug cartel and the American government ...
American Made (2017)
American Made is a peculiar film, but a very enjoyable one. It takes a playful, satirical look at the origins of the notorious 'Iran-Contra' affair, through the eyes of pilot Barry Seal. Along the ways we get thrills, laughs, astonishing (true-life) twists and turns and some vivid characters.
Tom Cruise Crash Lands in 'American Made' Trailer (Watch)
Cruise was in production on the movie at the time of the incident, but was not on the plane. Universal decided last August to change the title from " Mena " to " American Made ," and move ...
American Made review
A grinning Cruise is back in Top Gun territory in Doug Liman's sort-of-true story about a bored pilot who starts working for a Colombian cartel and the CIA
'American Made' Review: Tom Cruise Makes It Work
It's been a while since Cruise made a movie this risky, but American Made is exactly that—it's a story where Ronald Reagan ends up as the ultimate villain, and Pablo Escobar comes across as ...
Tom Cruise meets Pablo Escobar || HD
new HD clip from A M(2017)
American Made: True Story Behind Tom Cruise-Barry Seal Movie
September 29, 2017 12:18 PM EDT. American Made, the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to ...
American Made vs. the True Story of Barry Seal
Pablo Escobar Born: December 1, 1949 Birthplace: Rionegro, Colombia ... The scene was actually inspired by something that happened while director Doug Liman and Tom Cruise were training for the movie. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," Liman told Vulture. "He put the airplane into a parabolic arc and pinned me against the ceiling, and ...
What's Fact and What's Fiction in American Made
To win us over, it uses many of the same techniques employed by TWWS: having our dubious hero played by an extremely charismatic star, in this case Tom Cruise, fully at home in the cockpit as ...
In 'American Made,' Tom Cruise mingles with Noriega, Escobar and the
You know Pablo Escobar, the Iran-Contra Affair, American paternalism towards Central America. You know the American Dream. ... All the more stranger is that Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars of all time, appears in nearly every slipshod frame. Liman may have been visually uninteresting before, but with "American Made" he verges ...
Review: 'American Made' Has Tom Cruise. And Lies, Spies and Coke
Directed by Doug Liman. Action, Biography, Comedy, Crime, Thriller. R. 1h 55m. By Manohla Dargis. Sept. 28, 2017. The tagline for "American Made," a breezily, at times woozily rollicking Tom ...
Barry Seal: The Renegade Pilot Behind Tom Cruise's 'American Made'
But before he died, the photographs he captured made Pablo Escobar a wanted criminal and ultimately played an important part in the drug kingpin's downfall in 1993. What 'American Made' Got Wrong About His Astonishing Life. In many ways, the movie American Made does a faithful job of portraying Seal's larger-than-life personality.
Low Flying and High Adventure in the True Crime Movie
Wherein Tom Cruise uses his pilot's license while on the job. September 29, 2017 Tom Cruise plays a fictionalized version of Barry Seal, a pilot who worked simultaneously for the CIA and the ...
Tom Cruise filmography
Tom Cruise filmography. Tom Cruise is an American actor and producer who made his film debut with a minor role in the 1981 romantic drama Endless Love. [1] [2] Two years later he made his breakthrough by starring in the romantic comedy Risky Business (1983), [3] [4] which garnered his first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor ...
Tom Cruise Movie Based On Life Of Mena Man
MENA (KFSM) -- The movie American Made starring Tom Cruise opens in theaters Friday (Sept. 29). The movie depicts the life of Berry Seal in the 1980s after he was arrested for drug smuggling. Seal ...
Tom Cruise helps Pablo Escobar and makes millions
Tom Cruise's face when he sees Pablo Escobar 😆 ️ Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/204568612956950📢 New Movies 2023 https://www.youtube....
Tom Cruise Movies List
In a small Oklahoma town in 1964, the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other. Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze. Votes: 97,425 | Gross: $25.60M. 4.
New Tom Cruise Movies in 2023 and 2024
Tom Cruise: All New Movies Coming Out in 2023 and 2024. Naman Shrestha. August 31, 2023. After his breakthrough with leading roles in 'Risky Business' and ' Top Gun ' in the 1980s, Thomas "Tom" Cruise Mapother IV started bagging pivotal roles in several dramas, including ' Born on the Fourth of July ,' for which he even won a ...
The Tom Cruise Role That Was Written With Tom Hanks in Mind
Tom Cruise's iconic movie Jerry Maguire was actually written for Tom Hanks. Collider. ... Tom Cruise showed a surprisingly seasoned and thoughtful approach to his film choices in the 1990s ...