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American Made

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

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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.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Domhnall Gleeson

Monty "Schafer"

Sarah Wright

Jesse Plemons

Sheriff Downing

Caleb Landry Jones

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More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

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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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• Entertainment
• 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’ Ending Explained: What Happened to Barry Seal?

What happens to Seal after he becomes an informant for the DEA?

The Big Picture

• American Made is a true story about Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who becomes involved with government agencies and drug cartels in the '70s and '80s.
• Tom Cruise delivers a wonderful performance in a movie that initially flew under the radar.
• The film tackles complex themes such as the Iran-Contra affair and the Sandanista government coup in Venezuela.

The 2017 Tom Cruise film American Made is an unlikely true story, to say the least. Cruise plays Barry Seal, a real-life commercial pilot who ends up being recruited by multiple government agencies to infiltrate the South American drug cartels in the late '70s into the early '80s. And his on-again, off-again Southern drawl aside, it's a wonderful performance from the Mission: Impossible star in a movie that flew under the radar upon its initial release. And because the events depicted in American Made are taken directly from a true story, it makes it an even more fascinating story of how a commercial airline pilot ended up dealing with the likes of Pablo Escobar and the dangerous Medellín drug cartel in Colombia. Let's break down an ending that gets a little convoluted as just about every United States agency is involved at some point along with tie-ins to some political events unfolding at the same time including the Iran-Contra affair and the Sandanista government coup in Venezuela.

American Made

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.

What Is 'American Made About'?

Directed by Doug Liman , American Made is the true story of Barry Seal who was a commercial pilot for TWA , a now-defunct airline, back in the late 70s when he was busted for smuggling illegal contraband into the United States aboard the jets he was flying. He is then given a choice to face jail time or become an informant for the CIA and Agent Monty Schafer ( Domhnall Gleeson ). He chooses the latter and within just a few months finds himself as a contract CIA employee running guns for the US government and both trafficking and providing intelligence for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on the boon of illegal drugs flowing out of South America. He does this while trying to maintain a normal family life with his wife Lucy ( Sarah Wright ) and a couple of kids living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's a harrowing tale of a man who risks his own life and his family to avoid the wrath of the government and the FBI. Given Cruise's fascination with flying in both the Top Gun movies and the Mission Impossible franchise, it turned out to be a perfect fit for the amateur aviator and ultimate thrill seeker .

How Long Had Barry Seal Worked For the CIA in 'American Made'?

Once Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, American involvement in Central and South America grew exponentially as Reagan had promised to take a more hard-line approach to calamitous regimes that were popping up throughout the more unstable countries of the region. Seal began smuggling small amounts of marijuana into the country dating back to 1976. By 1978, he graduated to importing large amounts of cocaine from countries like Ecuador and Honduras.

By the early '80s, Barry Seal was running large amounts of drugs for the infamous Medellín cartel and the most notorious drug kingpin of the era, Pablo Escobar, from Colombia into the United States via the Gulf of Mexico. The DEA became aware of Seal's activity in 1981 and after several years of legal wrangling and indictments, Seal officially started contract work for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1983 until his death in February 1986 at just 46 years of age.

What Leads to Barry Seal's Demise in 'American Made'?

The final scenes in American Made are dedicated to a large cocaine haul that involved Pablo Escobar and several high-ranking members of his cartel. On what turns out to be Barry Seal's final run for the Medellín cartel, he agrees with his handler at the DEA, James Rangel ( Benito Martinez ) to install a hidden camera within the cargo of the fuselage of his plane. This camera captures Seal along with several Medellín lieutenants along with members of the controversial Venezuelan Sandanista government loading palettes of drugs into the plane. The pictures are supposed to be classified, but in the days that follow, they are aired when President Reagan goes on the air to expose what is happening in South America and Barry can be seen prominently in the photos. This is the beginning of the end for Barry as Escobar will surely be targeting him for betraying him which means certain death. He decides to stay away from his family so they won't be in danger when the retaliation comes.

Tom Cruise Made a Blink-and-You-Miss-It Cameo in a Brat Pack Western

Once Escobar knows that Barry has betrayed him and is working for the government, Barry is obviously concerned for his own well-being as Escobar has killed more important men than him for less. He goes into hiding moving from motel to motel on a daily basis to elude what he assumes are Medellín cartel members looking to assassinate him. He makes a series of video journal entries detailing some of his exploits as a sort of memoir. During this time, he is also serving a probation period of 6 months in Arkansas for being found in possession of a warehouse full of drugs and guns. So he spends half of the day in a halfway house and the other half hiding from Escobar's hitmen. Eventually, Barry's luck runs out, and while sitting outside the Arkansas halfway house one afternoon, two Medellín cartel assassins approach him as he is seated in his car and shoot him dead .

'American Made's Satirical CIA Ending and Final Shot Explained

After Barry's cover is blown when Reagan goes on TV and shows the photos of him engaged with the Medellín cartel and Sandanista regime, DEA agents celebrate with a toast of champagne while CIA Agent Monty Schafer frantically walks through the office telling his employees to get rid of anything and everything that has Barry Seal's name on it. They need to erase Barry from ever being involved with any CIA activity. In a tongue-in-cheek final line, Shafer has an epiphany and decides that they will say that the Iranians sold arm the Contras to explain away their involvement with Barry who had also been running guns down to the Contras who were fighting the oppressive and illegitimate Sandinista government in Venezuela. As he posits this idea to a colleague there is a caption below him that reads, "Schafer got a promotion."

This was what started the infamous Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s that brought down Colonel Oliver North . There is also a sequence that describes how, even after Barry's assassination, the CIA continued to use his plane to run guns to the Contras in Venezuela until it was shot down over Nicaragua. The last scene of American Made shows Lucy back behind the counter of a fast food restaurant working the cash register showing that he has come full circle on her wild ride with Barry. Doug Liman emphasizes the final shot of the nice bracelet on her wrist as she extends her arm to give a customer their order. One final ode to the wild ride that was the life of Barry Seal.

American Made is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

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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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Screen Rant

American made ending explained: what happened to barry seal.

American Made dramatizes the stranger-than-fiction story of drug-smuggling pilot Barry Seal but ultimately builds up to an alarming ending.

• American Made exposes the behind-the-scenes politics of the drug trade in the 1980s, shedding light on the complex bigger picture.
• Barry Seal's death is believed to have been orchestrated by the drug cartel for revealing sensitive information to the DEA, but conspiracy theories also suggest CIA involvement.
• The ending of American Made hints at the Iran-Contra scandal, showcasing how the CIA funded right-wing militants through selling American firearms in Iran.

American Made recreates the dramatic true story of Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who smuggled pile-loads of million-dollar drugs, only to become a DEA informant and then meet an unfortunate end. Tom Cruise reunited with Edge of Tomorrow filmmaker Doug Liman to play Seal in the 2017 biopic. Earning positive reactions from critics and audiences alike, American Made had its fair share of creative liberties, but it still did a faithful job of exposing the behind-the-scenes politics of the drug trade in the 1980s. While Seal did make a fortune out of his high-profile drug operations, he was just a part of the more complex bigger picture.

The American Made ending exemplifies the socio-political realities of the era by not only delving into Seal’s untimely death but also the steps that the American government took in its aftermath. From Moby’s goosebumps-inducing “Extreme Ways” establishing a Bourne movie tradition in The Bourne Identity to John Newman’s rousing ballad “Love Me Again” closing Edge of Tomorrow , Doug Liman’s best movies end with iconic tracks. American Made is no exception as its climatic events play in the backdrop of The Heavy’s power anthem “What Makes A Good Man.” Even though the song is a 2012 release, the ending reveals some era-defining moments of the' 80s.

Why Is Barry Seal Killed?

After years of flying stealth-heavy missions for the CIA and later smuggling drugs for Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel, Barry Seal is at his wit’s end by American Made ’s third act. Following a desperate attempt to crash-land a plan to evade arrest from the DEA, Seal gives himself up to the authorities. In the tradition of classic crime movie finales like the ending of Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street , Seal willingly gives up his information and contacts to the DEA in exchange for protection. For his illicit operations, the ever-smiling aviator is still punished. Serving his sentence of 1,000 hours of community service, all seems to be fine for Seal.

This is, of course, until he gets mysteriously shot dead. The American Made ending suggests that the cartel had him murdered for revealing sensitive information to the DEA. More or less, this is the general theory that is accepted to explain Seal’s death even as conspiracy theories on the Internet suggest that his murder might have been orchestrated by the CIA itself. In fact, Seal’s widow Deborah DuBois Seal even told The Daily Mail in 2017 that the US government didn’t do much to protect her husband after he came clean as an informant. She adds that even she doesn’t know who exactly might have been behind Seal’s assassination.

Why The CIA Destroyed All Connections With Seal

Even though the CIA’s involvement in hiring Barry Seal subsequently became public knowledge, American Made suggests that the secret agency immediately destroyed all evidence connecting it with the infamous aviator after he was murdered. While there is no concrete evidence to support how the CIA hid such evidence, it is probably standard agency protocol to hide all connections after a major drug supplier like Seal died. Even before he got involved with the Cartel, the CIA’s instructions to Seal to conduct aerial surveillance over Central America were always meant to be a hushed-up affair. However, it must be noted that Monty Schafer, the CIA officer who recruited Seal, was fictional.

How The CIA Funded The Contras

While Domhnall Gleeson’s character Monty Schafer wasn’t real and was just created to represent the collective state of CIA at the time, Monty’s actions at the very end of American Made are of utmost importance in American history. Moments after Barry Seal’s death, an elated Monty is found suggesting to his seniors to fund the Nicaraguan right-wing militant group Contras through all the funds that the Agency can secure by selling American firearms in Iran. This strategy did work as a perfect way to replace the funds that were otherwise raised by Seal’s constant drug-smuggling operations. Hence, within just a matter of seconds, American Made hints at the Iran-Contra scandal.

To make the ending more realistic, the final seconds also feature actual archival footage of then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President George Bush being questioned about claims of America arming Iranian terrorists to wage war elsewhere in Latin American countries. Both leaders are shown dodging journalists’ questions even though it’s left for the viewer to deduce what actually happened. By now, it’s common knowledge that the Iran-Contra affair was an effort by the Reagan administration to oust the left-leaving government in Nicaragua at a time when the Cold War was still in effect. As for Barry Seal, he was unfortunately just a pawn who was forgotten after his death.

What Happened To Lucy Seal?

Barry Seal’s wife Lucy is played by Sarah Wright in American Made , the character being a dramatized version of Seal’s third wife Deborah DuBois Seal . The final scene of American Made features Lucy and her three children resettling in Baton Rouge where she works as a waitress. Following her husband’s death, it’s clear that she picked up a job at a fast-food restaurant to make ends meet. This is in stark contrast with the upscale life she led earlier, thanks to Seal’s million-dollar missions. But as the camera zooms in on an expensive-looking bracelet on Lucy’s wrist, the ending suggests that maybe, she hasn’t parted from all her wealth.

The real-life fate of Deborah Seal was similar as she told The Daily Mail that she and her children had to struggle financially following her husband’s death. In the same interview, she also revealed that she had actually crossed paths with Barry first when she was working as a waitress. It’s only an ill-fated irony that the American Made ending finds Deborah’s on-screen version Lucy picking up a waitressing job. It’s unclear how much Deborah Seal paid by the movie’s producers to secure the rights to her husband’s life story, but she did add that she had been living only a modest life for the past few decades.

The Real Meaning Of American Made's Ending

Some of Tom Cruise’s best movies have offered introspective critiques of the military and the government. Born on the Fourth of July , A Few Good Men and Lions for Lambs are some cases in point. One way or the other, American Made continues this tradition for Cruise, and it exposes how America’s militaristic hegemony can influence global geopolitics at a concerning level. Doug Liman doesn’t rely on any preachy discourse to criticize the corruption behind the drug trade as the ending of American Made shows, the director crafts an entertaining yet alarming attempt to satirize the inner workings of an infamous secret agency.

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American Made (2017)

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American Made: All Locations Where The Tom Cruise Starrer Was Filmed

Known for his action-packed thrillers with serious character development, ‘ American Made ’ sees visionary auteur Doug Liman team up with Tom Cruise following their collaboration in ‘ Edge of Tomorrow .’ The action-comedy drama film provides a fictionalized account of true political events of the late 1970s and 80s, especially the Iran-Contra scandal. It follows the story of Barry Seal, an enigmatic personality who was central to the affair, and the consequences of actions this adventurous spirit couldn’t handle.

Starting off as a playful pilot, Seal has a family he needs to care for while being away all the time to work for the CIA. Cruise is joined by Domhnall Gleeson, Jesse Plemons, Sarah Wright, and Jayma Mays in this adventure to depict Seal’s lifestyle. The film provides an adrenalin rush on land and in the air, where there are plenty of scenic moments, which were performed by Cruise himself as a licensed pilot. Since the movie is based in different parts of the country, it naturally raises questions about where it was taped.

American Made Filming Locations

‘American Made’ was filmed in several locations in Georgia, Colombia, and Louisiana, specifically in Atlanta, Medellin, and New Orleans. While principal photography commenced on May 18, 2015, in Georgia, it took significant time to film different parts of the movie in plenty of specific locations. With the Georgia locations wrapped up by July 12, 2015, the team moved its filming to Colombia, where Tom Cruise and Liman decided to be adventurous and explored the jungles to scout locations ideal for the shoot.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jayson Warner Smith (@jaysonwsmith)

After a decision was made, the part of the filming in Colombia began on August 26, 2015, and concluded on September 11, 2015, coinciding with a real-life tragedy where two people were killed in a plane crash when the crew members of the production team were returning to Medellin. After this incident, the filming resumed much later on February 3, 2016, in Louisiana and wrapped up just a few days later by February 11, 2016. The filming process post mostly involved reshoots back in Georgia in 2017 from January to February. Let’s learn more about the specific locations where the film was taped.

Cherokee County, Georgia

Most of the filming for ‘American Made’ took place in Georgia, with a very crucial part shot in Ball Ground in Cherokee County. In the movie, the Seal family had to flee their house in Louisiana for a safer home in Mena, Arkansas. The filming for all the scenes set in Mena was actually done in Ball Ground, at Gilmer Ferry Road, where the set for the ranch house was prepared.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by William Mark McCullough (@wmarkmccullough)

The set decoration team progressed in its efficiency along with the plot, adding plenty of renovations and additions to the set to depict the result of Seal’s financial success from his dealings with the cartel. Even the streets of the area were modified slightly to provide the feel of the 80s era, including the installation of plenty of payphones that Seal had to keep using. Even the Nicaraguan airstrip, from where Seal conducts his operations, was shot at the Cherooke airport, located at 1350 Bishop Rd, Ball Ground, GA 30107.

Atlanta, Georgia

Many other scenes for the film were shot in and around Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia. A lot of scenes show Seal on a plane, especially in Atlanta, which were shot at Atlanta Media Campus at 6305 Crescent Drive in Norcross. Close to Atlanta, the scene where the CIA operative gives Seal a private aircraft to fly at a hangar is shot in Candler Field, Williamson. Another training facility was prepared within two days just north of Atlanta in Roswell, where an empty field was chosen as the filming spot.

Interestingly, the scenes set in Louisiana’s Baton Rouge, where the Seal family initially lives, were actually shot in Roswell, too, on the first day of filming. These were exactly taped at 640 Brickleberry Court. Plenty of other scenes and sets had to be located in different parts of Atlanta and some surrounding areas that were chosen within Georgia, such as Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. Other locations that were a part of the film were Morgan, Madison, and Pickens within Georgia. The sets like the CIA office and even offices for George Bush and Olive North had to be built from scratch.

Medellin, Colombia

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Doug Liman (@dougliman)

Since a friendship between Seal and Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel is depicted in the film, some scenes were also shot in Colombia, especially in Medellin. However, due to the unfortunate incident with the production crew, the shooting was wrapped up in a few days. Some parts were also filmed in Santa Marta in Colombia, where the scenic locations proved to be ideal, especially for the flying scenes. A few scenes were likely lensed at Aeroparque Juan Pablo II, a famous waterpark at Cra. 70 #16, Guayabal in Medellín. Nonetheless, all the shooting in these areas was wrapped up within a couple of days before resuming the reshoots in Georgia.

New Orleans, Louisiana

The initial part of ‘American Made’ is based in Baton Rouge, which is a few miles away from New Orleans in Louisiana. This part depicts the time in the lives of the Seal family before they shifted to Arkansas. It showcases the members residing in their suburban home when Seal is still a commercial pilot. As per reports, the shooting period in Louisiana was very brief, with a few aerial shots over Bayou State and one scene in the film at the airport where a vintage New Orleans poster is visible.

Read More: American Made Review: Tom Cruise Delivers

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Tom Cruise's 'American Made' Is a Hillbilly 'Wolf of Wall Street'

Drug smuggling really shouldn't be this much fun.

When Tom Cruise’s Barry Seal crashes a small airplane full of drugs into a suburban house, covering his entire body in cocaine in the process, American Made somehow makes drug smuggling look fun. Typical Barry! A likable pseudo-villain bumbling his way out of a dicey situation on other people’s graces, or in this case, on a teenager’s bicycle.

That’s American Made in a nutshell: crazy, fun, and often entertaining. But because it plays up one of the CIA’s supposed “darkest secrets” for laughs, the film often feels like a bizarre string of stunts with no moral center. It wants to have the amoral ruminations of Wolf of Wall Street but is mostly Tom Cruise having fun . Cruise is still great, but nothing in the movie really sticks quite like the cocaine that coats his body after that plane crash.

American Made tells a lesser-known true(ish) story tangentially related to Pablo Escobar ’s infamous reign as a leader in the Medellín drug cartel, which at its peak provided 80 percent of all cocaine coming into the United States. Barry Seal is the disgraced TWA pilot hired to smuggle cocaine into the States with his tiny plane, and along the way, he conducts a bunch of other illegal flights, sometimes for the CIA and eventually even for the White House.

Agent Schafer recruits Barry.

American Made ’s story escalates at a bewildering pace as Barry goes from a simple airline pilot sneaking cigars to the “gringo that always delivers” several hundred pounds of cocaine in a single flight.

A CIA agent named Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) first employs Barry Seal to take surveillance photos in South America after he’s fired for the cigars. Barry’s later arrested for working with the Cartel, which drags him deeper and deeper into a convoluted progression of pilot jobs that sees him delivering weapons to communist rebels, bringing more and more drugs to the U.S., and even smuggling revolutionaries back to the United States for training.

Schafer moves Barry from Louisiana to Arkansas and gives him tons of land, a bag full of money, and his own airport. Barry’s the luckiest guy in the world, narrowly avoiding the DEA to eventually becoming the wealthiest man in a new town.

In its middle, American Made suffers some growing pains as it tries really hard to be a hillbilly Wolf of Wall Street . Barry has a beautiful trophy wife (played by Sarah Wright, who is 22 years Cruise’s junior , by the way) and more money than he knows what to do with.

Barry brushes up on his Al Capone history.

You can’t help but also think of Breaking Bad ’s Walter White, who sold his soul to a life of crime and couldn’t launder his mountain of cash fast enough. Barry Seal could work with people like Heisenberg and Jordan Belfort to make a quick buck, but he’s too naive and good-natured to ever make their descent into evil.

American Made owes a lot to these “decent guy gone bad” stories, chief among them Lord of War (2005), in which Nicolas Cage plays an international arms dealer providing weapons for the government in secret, all inspired by an actual arms dealer . Cage’s Yuri Orlov is the uber-serious version of an arms dealer, whereas Barry Seal is the goofball — they both get bailed out of jail by a government that needs them to do bad things.

But when Barry starts working for the White House, it’s enough to make your head spin. How did a goofy pilot from Louisiana come to fly covert missions for the President to collect evidence against drug cartels?

Just when you think there's no way Barry can weasel out of this one, he does.

Cruise has a lot of fun in American Made despite the gallons of sweat pouring from his body when in the South American heat. Barry Seal might be a charismatic anti-hero, but he’s also kind of an idiot. He doesn’t acquire all this wealth because he’s smart or particularly ambitious. He’s socially graceful with a lot of luck, and that’s about it.

It helps to humanize Barry when he messes up. In one case, a pilot he hires falls asleep mid-flight. Rather than get angry and make things worse, Barry laughs it off and improvises, nudging the guy’s plane with his own to wake him up. Barry Seal would rather smile and smooth things over than initiate a confrontation, but partially because that’s all Cruise ever does in American Made , the whole thing feels almost bored. We see the same shot of Barry drinking tequila with drug lords over and over while never getting drunk. He just keeps smiling, even when his wife has a mental breakdown as DEA agents tear his house apart.

We admire Jordan Belfort’s tenacity, brilliance, and astounding tolerance for drugs in Wolf of Wall Street , but other than Cruise’s boyish charm, there’s not much to the hapless Barry Seal. American Made wants us to like Barry in this weird story because he’s fun, but because he’s supplying some of the most corrupt and violent institutions in the world, you can’t help but wonder if the story could have used less comedy.

Was it all worth it for the wild ride for Barry Seal? Tom Cruise and American Made sure want us to think so, but beyond laughing at Barry’s antics, there’s not much more to American Made .

American Made hits theaters on on September 29.

If you liked this article, check out this video on when the CIA illegally drugged thousands of U.S. and Canadian citizens.

American Made: All Locations Where The Tom Cruise Starrer Was Filmed

Known for his action-packed thrillers with serious character development, ‘ American Made ’ sees visionary auteur Doug Liman team up with Tom Cruise following their collaboration in ‘ Edge of Tomorrow .’ The action-comedy drama film provides a fictionalized account of true political events of the late 1970s and 80s, especially the Iran-Contra scandal. It follows the story of Barry Seal, an enigmatic personality who was central to the affair, and the consequences of actions this adventurous spirit couldn’t handle.

Starting off as a playful pilot, Seal has a family he needs to care for while being away all the time to work for the CIA. Cruise is joined by Domhnall Gleeson, Jesse Plemons, Sarah Wright, and Jayma Mays in this adventure to depict Seal’s lifestyle. The film provides an adrenalin rush on land and in the air, where there are plenty of scenic moments, which were performed by Cruise himself as a licensed pilot. Since the movie is based in different parts of the country, it naturally raises questions about where it was taped.

American Made Filming Locations

‘American Made’ was filmed in several locations in Georgia, Colombia, and Louisiana, specifically in Atlanta, Medellin, and New Orleans. While principal photography commenced on May 18, 2015, in Georgia, it took significant time to film different parts of the movie in plenty of specific locations. With the Georgia locations wrapped up by July 12, 2015, the team moved its filming to Colombia, where Tom Cruise and Liman decided to be adventurous and explored the jungles to scout locations ideal for the shoot.

After a decision was made, the part of the filming in Colombia began on August 26, 2015, and concluded on September 11, 2015, coinciding with a real-life tragedy where two people were killed in a plane crash when the crew members of the production team were returning to Medellin. After this incident, the filming resumed much later on February 3, 2016, in Louisiana and wrapped up just a few days later by February 11, 2016. The filming process post mostly involved reshoots back in Georgia in 2017 from January to February. Let’s learn more about the specific locations where the film was taped.

Cherokee County, Georgia

Most of the filming for ‘American Made’ took place in Georgia, with a very crucial part shot in Ball Ground in Cherokee County. In the movie, the Seal family had to flee their house in Louisiana for a safer home in Mena, Arkansas. The filming for all the scenes set in Mena was actually done in Ball Ground, at Gilmer Ferry Road, where the set for the ranch house was prepared.

The set decoration team progressed in its efficiency along with the plot, adding plenty of renovations and additions to the set to depict the result of Seal’s financial success from his dealings with the cartel. Even the streets of the area were modified slightly to provide the feel of the 80s era, including the installation of plenty of payphones that Seal had to keep using. Even the Nicaraguan airstrip, from where Seal conducts his operations, was shot at the Cherooke airport, located at 1350 Bishop Rd, Ball Ground, GA 30107.

Atlanta, Georgia

Many other scenes for the film were shot in and around Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia. A lot of scenes show Seal on a plane, especially in Atlanta, which were shot at Atlanta Media Campus at 6305 Crescent Drive in Norcross. Close to Atlanta, the scene where the CIA operative gives Seal a private aircraft to fly at a hangar is shot in Candler Field, Williamson. Another training facility was prepared within two days just north of Atlanta in Roswell, where an empty field was chosen as the filming spot.

Interestingly, the scenes set in Louisiana’s Baton Rouge, where the Seal family initially lives, were actually shot in Roswell, too, on the first day of filming. These were exactly taped at 640 Brickleberry Court. Plenty of other scenes and sets had to be located in different parts of Atlanta and some surrounding areas that were chosen within Georgia, such as Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. Other locations that were a part of the film were Morgan, Madison, and Pickens within Georgia. The sets like the CIA office and even offices for George Bush and Olive North had to be built from scratch.

Medellin, Colombia

Since a friendship between Seal and Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel is depicted in the film, some scenes were also shot in Colombia, especially in Medellin. However, due to the unfortunate incident with the production crew, the shooting was wrapped up in a few days. Some parts were also filmed in Santa Marta in Colombia, where the scenic locations proved to be ideal, especially for the flying scenes. A few scenes were likely lensed at Aeroparque Juan Pablo II, a famous waterpark at Cra. 70 #16, Guayabal in Medellín. Nonetheless, all the shooting in these areas was wrapped up within a couple of days before resuming the reshoots in Georgia.

New Orleans, Louisiana

The initial part of ‘American Made’ is based in Baton Rouge, which is a few miles away from New Orleans in Louisiana. This part depicts the time in the lives of the Seal family before they shifted to Arkansas. It showcases the members residing in their suburban home when Seal is still a commercial pilot. As per reports, the shooting period in Louisiana was very brief, with a few aerial shots over Bayou State and one scene in the film at the airport where a vintage New Orleans poster is visible.

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Tom Cruise Creates His Own ‘Trafalgar Square’ Tube Station Filming Mission: Impossible in London

The actor was pictured filming scenes for the eighth 'Mission: Impossible' movie in the British capital on April 28

Raw Image / Goff / Splash / SplashNews

Tom Cruise has taken over the streets of London!

On Sunday, April 28, the actor, 61, was photographed filming scenes for the next Mission: Impossible movie in the British capital outside an invented Tube station called 'Trafalgar Square.'

Cruise shut down the real Trafalgar Square for the shoot as he was seen coming in and out of the London Underground station while surrounded by crowds of extras.

Off camera, the action star appeared in happier spirits as he chatted to members of the crew in between takes. 

The eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise is set for a May 23, 2025 release. According to Deadline , the release was delayed by a year due to the SAG-AFTRA strike , which ended in November 2023.

Cruise returns to the franchise as protagonist Ethan Hunt, along with director and longtime collaborative partner Christopher McQuarrie. 

The actor was spotted filming more adrenaline-fueled scenes for the action movie in London last month. 

On March 24, the American Made star was photographed sprinting down a street in the capital wearing a black suit with an unbuttoned white shirt covered in fake blood.

Last summer, Cruise returned to the big screen in the seventh film in the franchise, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning .

The film made $172 million at the domestic box office and earned the franchise its first Oscars nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the 96th Academy Awards earlier this year.

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Meanwhile, Cruise is reportedly set to appear in another sequel of his movies for the third Top Gun film , following the huge success of the second installment, Top Gun: Maverick , released in 2022. 

In January, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Paramount is developing the sequel with co-writer Ehren Kruger, with Joe Kosinski set to direct. According to the outlet, the film will see Cruise return in his role as Pete Mitchell, alongside his Maverick costars Glen Powell and Miles Teller .

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