Review of American Made (2017) by K Nife C — 27 Oct 2017

Freeze frame.

You're probably wondering how you ended up watching another formulaic recapitulation of Goodfellas. Maybe we should start at the beginning. Tom Cruise was just your every day commercial jet airline pilot family man with a terrible southern accent. Then everything changed. *cue generic Rock 'n' Roll* Domnhall Gleason says "Are you prepared to American this American America?" Then Tom Cruise is like "Money?" And the rest of the cliche, as they say, is history.

What will they do with all of that money? And do they ever feel bad about capitalizing off of suppressing resistance movements in Central America or funneling cocaine to the inner cities, supporting brutal dictatorships and disproportionately crippling the African American community? *cue generic Rock 'n' Roll* But that's okay because he gets rich! The filmmakers finger-point the arrogance and role of the Reagan/Bush administration in this situation to appease the liberal intelligentsia all the while giving the Duck Dynasty crowd some heavy "I just want to be bad ass" trope.

Believe me, I'll be the first to congratulate a whole hearted, slamming critique on the American dream. This is just a fantastical, rose-tinted, congratulatory joy ride about a man who was a piece of shit and deserved the comeuppance he got. He wasn't a maverick. He wasn't a bad ass. He got rich off of other people's suffering, and no amount of smarmy, chicken-fried Tom Cruise charisma changes that. Unfortunately, the men who facilitated Seal's rise to the top of the repugnance roster will never be held accountable.