American Made (2017)

"The man who always delivers" (or something like that) keeps repeating in various lines of "American Made". And I guess it's somehow also a reason why the story seemed depressing in the end, but I wouldn't elaborate on that here... Barry Seal was a real character, an airline pilot who in the beginning of the '80s ended up working for both CIA and Medellin cartel trafficking weapons and drugs respectively. What we have in the movie is a slightly romanticized version of the real deal, but catchy enough to make lose an extra 5-10 minutes to quickly parse the Wikipedia article and a couple of external links for finding more (= where the conclusion of "romanticized" came from actually). Spoiler alert: don't do this before watching the movie! In brief, what we see here is how our main character advances from a TWA pilot position to owning a local airport and a little airplanes fleet for keeping his business running. Which business makes enough money to draw the attention simultaneously of FBI, DEA, ATF and the state police. But you'll get more details in the movie... where I must say that details count a lot. From the tiny different threads of an almost incredible story, the style of delivering it which emphasizes clearly the idea of keeping your sense of humor in the worst situations, up to technical details as the pale-yellow filters that sort of bring a documentary tint to the camera work. All these keep somehow a generally relaxed feeling - I can't think on anything else than "Wolf on the Wall Street" now as comparison, which might not be the best. All in all the way the story unrolls is quite enjoyable to watch. And still, the ending comes a bit like a cold shower that makes you think... does it really worth to always deliver?...

Rating: 4 out of 5