Skip to main content


Rating: 4.3/5
Review: "American Made film review"

"An entertaining and fun well-made film boosted by great direction and acting."

Doug Liman and Tom Cruise paired up together again for a fast-paced and colorful biography on Barry Seal. American Made may not have the blockbuster action but it holds up on its own firmly with the help of a great direction by Doug. Tom Cruise is definitely the main highlight of the film and he is what made it so entertaining.

The story: The pace is brisk; it takes the audience on a crazy ride from the start and never slows down. Though it never felt boring, sometimes I felt that it could have slowed down for some development. After the film ended, it seems that Doug and Tom had a clear mind on just keeping the audience as entertained as they can be. It cuts to the chase and never dwells on anything such as emotions. It moves quickly from event to event. Advantage is that I was not bored at all. Disadvantage is that it felt like a 2 hours montage on Barry Seal's life. There is no real tension or character's development. The realism is helped by the smart decision of filming like a documentary. Be warned: Action genre fans may be disappointed that is no big action. It is strangely classified as action.

Acting wise: Tom Cruise looks like he had lots of fun filming. It is just entertaining watching him immersed himself in the crazy and fast-paced world of Barry Seal. The rest of the cast are decent but not impressive.

Music wise: Christophe Beck created a decent mood of the different years. Since Doug wanted the film to feel realistic, it is not jam-packed with music. There are many moments where sounds and ambiance take the front seat.

Overall: It is not impressive but it is a solid entry to Doug Liman's and Tom Cruise's filmography. I went in with low expectation and had no idea about the outrageous stuff Barry Seal did. And not only was I entertained, I was immersed into the world of Barry.

More reviews on my IMDB account.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rating: 3.4/5 Review: "The Spirit of Ramayana" (103 minutes) "A passable Thai horror movie with an interesting concept but weak execution." As a low-budget horror movie, it has enough entertainment values. In the recent years, there are a few strong Thai horror movies with decent production values and there are many mediocre low-budget horror movies. The Spirit of Ramayana is somewhat in the middle. It may not look that polished but its themes and concept are intriguing enough. The story: The narrative is straight forward however its editing made the movie look messy and disjointed. It is a simple story about Mintra, a young dancer who is rejected for the main role because she cannot pull off an evil and sensual side. However, a spirit helps her to unleash her dark side. On paper, it sounds like a supernatural Black Swan. It lacks the emotional depth of Black Swan as the director seems only interested in churning out cheap scares. As the plot develops fur...
Post a Comment
Read more
Rating: 3.7/5 Review: "Terminator Salvation DVD review" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is not bad. It is not the worst terminator movie, I actually thought Terminator 1 is just okay. Terminator 2 and 3 are quite entertaining followed by also entertaining Salvation. MCG, the director of Charlies' Angels, takes the directing seat and turned terminator into a dark and gritty world. As what he said, he did not want the future to be a shiny world but a dark and gritty world. He is considered to have done a great job in that and creating the realistic and cool action. But his story pretty much stays the same as his other movies, a simple mindless thrill ride. The story: The future is here and the year is 2018...John Conner is a daring man who will be willing to save people from Skynet, a evil organisation which creates Terminators. A mysterious man who is supposed to be dead suddenly finds himself in the year of...
Post a Comment
Read more
Rating: 3.7/5 Review: "Fantastic Four movie review" "A decent gritty reboot that could have been something more than what it is now." This is Josh Trank's first big budget movie and it seems he is slightly inexperienced of directing a movie of a massive scale. Fresh from directing a small budget movie, Chronicle, it seems that he is overwhelmed by whatever happened (there are rumours that Matthew Vaughn was brought in to reshoot). Nonetheless, on the whole, the reboot is an alright movie that rehashes on the tired superhero origin. It is disappointing that it is a little shallow. I think with a longer runtime, it could benefit the characters' development and flow of the story. The story: Apparently, the writers of the film said that it does not follow any story from the source material. Instead, a new origin is created. I didn't exactly know how the original source material goes (I read a couple of Fantastic Four comic books to know the tone ...
Post a Comment
Read more