American Made

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

[mr_rating_result]

Following an excoriating headline (“’The Mummy’ Is the Worst Tom Cruise Movie Ever Made”), IndieWire published an article titled “5 Ways for Tom Cruise to Resurrect His Career.”

Number One on the list was “Reunite With the Directors Who Inspire Him.”

Tom Cruise must have been paying attention, for his latest cinematic outing reunites him with Doug Liman, the director who led him through that brilliant sci-fi film, “Edge of Tomorrow.” That’s the one where a space trooper relives his battles over and over ‘til he gets it right in a Groundhog-esque manner.

This time around Liman directs Cruise in a biopic called “American Made.” It tells the daring real-life story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a former TWA pilot who flew reconnaissance missions for the CIA over South America, smuggled drugs for Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, and turned informant for the DEA.

Add some action, flying excitement, and dangerous situations and you have a poor man’s “Mission Impossible” of sorts — that being Cruise’s most popular film franchise to date.

No, you won’t find Tom Cruise hanging onto the side of the plane in this one. But he’s back in the cockpit with “Top Gun” cockiness.

You do have a handful of aeronautical sequences where the “increasingly frantic Seal taking off from untested runways, making a single-handed coke drop barely a thousand feet above the ground or making an emergency landing to evade Customs officials …”

While not a big-screen extravaganza like the MI franchise, “American Made” is nevertheless entertaining. And earns the actor redemption with IndieWire, which declared in a headline: “Tom Cruise Finally Lands a Role Worthy of His Talents.”

“American Made” is currently flying high at Tropic Cinema.

Here we have an anti-hero who is a product of ‘80s Reagonomics. Barry Seal was knee-deep in the Iran-Contra Affair. And yes, he even encounters Ollie North.

Rather than his trademark toothpaste smile, Cruise allows his grin to falter in moments of panic and insecurity faced by his character. Tom Cruise delivers a good performance: He accurately portrays Barry Seal as a morally flexible delivery boy who amassed great wealth from illegal smuggling activities, and ultimately paid the price for it when Colombian assassins meet up with him outside a Salvation Army hostel in Louisiana.

Maybe the film’s message is that crime doesn’t pay. But Tom Cruise is hoping that a movie about it does.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com