“Wolf of Wall Street” meets” Catch me if You Can”, American Made is a semi unbelievable true story of a pilot that was running guns for the government and drugs for the cartels, making cash hand over fist, while living in a small town in the south. At the end of the day, it is a movie about a man pulling one over on seemingly, everyone, and living about as far on the edge as you can. So to review this movie is to review this man, and so we are very lucky they cast Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is the last of a dying breed, a movie star. If he made one of these movies a year, I would see them every year. Cruise has the perfect amount of star quality and bravado to pull off a character like this, and with almost anyone else in this role, I think it would fall flat. Pair him with a thrilling story, the fun supporting cast of Domhnall Gleeson, Caleb Landry Jones (who are both having killer years) and Sarah Wright as a great partner for him, and it leads to a stressful but funromp for the better part of the film.

I am never sure if true stories should be marked as spoilers, but SPOILERS!

I can never decide how I want movies with an anti-hero to end. Part of you wants them to get away with it, you have invested all this time in watching him pull one over on the government and the cartels over and over, but at the same time, you can’t have every movie with a lovable felon end in sunshine and rainbows. American Made manages to tie the story up in a tight bow, without it feeling like the punishment doled out in an after school special.

I would be a terrible criminal, and I think that is what draws me to crime movies. Gives me a hit of adrenaline when the reality is the riskiest thing I am doing at the moment is eating popcorn that may leave kernels in my teeth. 8.5/10