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The True Story Behind the Movie <em>American Made</em>

The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

American Made , the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to make the phenomenon of raining money a plausible ecological scenario. And a sex scene in the cockpit of a plane. That’s flying through the air. With one participant being the pilot. Did we mention it’s Tom Cruise?

If it sounds like an exercise in screenwriting excess, it’s not entirely — the film takes as its inspiration the true story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and, later, an informant for the DEA. It’s an ideal vehicle for Cruise, a.k.a. Maverick , whose mischievous swagger is accented here (literally) with a Louisiana drawl.

The movie hardly purports to be a documentary — director Doug Liman, who reteams with Cruise after Edge of Tomorrow , has referred to it as “a fun lie based on a true story.” And perhaps its looseness with the facts is for the best, as conflicting accounts make it difficult to get a clear picture on certain aspects of Seal’s seemingly made-for-the-movies life. It’s a thorny story that takes place against the backdrop of the Reagan-era War on Drugs and the notorious Iran-Contra affair , with Seal never hesitating to do business with opposing sides, so long as the payout was prodigious.

Here’s what we know about Seal — and what’s still up for debate.

MORE: Review: American Made Lets a Smug Tom Cruise Just Be Tom Cruise

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

According to Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal — written by retired FBI agent Del Hahn, who worked on the task force that went after Seal in the ’80s — Seal obtained his student pilot license at 15 and became fully licensed at 16. His instructor was so impressed by his natural talent that he allowed him to fly solo after only eight hours of training. After serving in the National Guard and Army Reserve, he became a pilot with TWA, among the youngest command pilots to operate a Boeing 707.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

As Cruise plays him, Seal was a blend of balls and braggadocio, fond of stunts and rarely registering the possibilities of danger or failure. According to Hahn, Seal’s high school yearbook photo was accompanied by the inscription, “Full of fun, full of folly.” His flight instructor described him as wild and fearless and generally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. In an interview with Vice , Hahn says Seal was personable but “not as smart and clever as he thought he was.”

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Sarah Wright plays Seal’s delightfully foul-mouthed wife in the movie, alternately exasperated by his schemes and enthralled by the riches they bring. In reality, Seal was married three times and had five children. He had a son and daughter with first wife Barbara Bottoms, whom he married in 1963 and subsequently divorced. He then married Linda McGarrh Ross in 1971, divorcing a year later, before marrying Deborah Ann DuBois, with whom he would go on to have three children, in 1974.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

While the film depicts Seal’s foray into smuggling as beginning with Cuban cigars, his first documented run-in with the law for a smuggling offense took place in 1972 when he was one of eight people arrested for a plot to smuggle explosives out of the U.S. Though he wasn’t convicted, he lost his job with TWA. By 1976, according to Hahn, he had moved onto marijuana, and within a couple of years graduated to cocaine, which was less bulky, less sniffable by dogs and generally more profitable.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Seal and the pilots he recruited — including one he met in jail and his first wife’s brother — trafficked drugs over the border of his home state. As in the movie, he sometimes delivered them by pushing packed duffel bags out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be retrieved by partners on the ground.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

In the movie, Seal meets the cartel big wigs early on. In reality, Hahn writes, he did not deal with them directly, and they referred to him only as “El Gordo,” or “The Fat Man.” He finally met with them in April 1984 when he was working with the DEA on a sting operation intended to lead to their capture. (That operation would go awry when Seal’s status as an informant was revealed in a Washington Times cover story months later.)

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

The DEA was onto Seal for a long time before securing an indictment against him in March 1983 on several counts, including conspiracy to distribute methaqualone and possession with intent to distribute Quaaludes. As the movie suggests, there was some confusion among government agencies intent on taking him down.

His initial attempt to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, offering information on the Ochoa family, was rejected. But in March 1984, he traveled to Washington to the office of the Vice President’s Drug Task Force and cut a deal on the strength of his intel on and connections to the cartel.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

The film has Seal’s involvement with the CIA beginning in the late 1970s, relatively early on in his smuggling career. Under the handling of an agent played by Domhnall Gleeson, Cruise’s Seal gathers intelligence by flying low over Guatemala and Nicaragua and snapping photos from his plane. Later, the CIA turns a blind eye to his drug smuggling in exchange for his delivery of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua, who the U.S. government was attempting to mobilize against the leftist Sandinistas, who controlled the government. The movie even suggests that the CIA helped set Seal up with his very own airport in the small town of Mena, Ark.

According to Hahn’s book, rumors of Seal’s involvement with the CIA anytime before 1984 were just that — rumors. The only confirmed connection between Seal and the CIA turned up by Hahn’s research was in 1984, after Seal had begun working as an informant for the DEA. The CIA placed a hidden camera in a cargo plane Seal flew to pick up a cocaine shipment in Colombia. He and his copilot were able to obtain photographs that proved a link between the Sandinistas and the cartel, key intelligence for the Reagan administration in its plans to help overthrow the Sandinistas’ regime. But the final piece of the operation — a celebration of the successful cocaine transport, at which the Ochoas and Escobar were to be arrested all at once — never happened because of the revelation of Seal’s status as an informant.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

Jorge Ochoa reportedly ordered a hit on Seal early in 1986. At the time, Seal was living in a Baton Rouge Salvation Army facility. Charges against him had not been fully erased as a result of his cooperation with the government, and he was sentenced to probation and six months residing at the treatment center. On the evening of Feb. 19, just after he parked his Cadillac, he was killed by two Colombian hitmen armed with machine guns.

Thanks in part to several witnesses, both men and four additional men who conspired in the killing were arrested within two days. Seal would go down as a legendary criminal, one of the most important witnesses in DEA history and — in Hollywood’s estimation, at least — a classic American story fit for only our most American onscreen hero.

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Barry Seal: The real-life story behind Tom Cruise's character in American Made

Doug liman’s new film follows the wild true story of a pilot, drug smuggler, and eventual informant, article bookmarked.

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Hollywood screenwriters toil their lives away trying to come up with the next crazy, catchy story to pitch. Yet, sometimes, history does the work for them.

Tom Cruise ‘s latest vehicle American Made , directed by Doug Liman, sees the A-lister play the infamous Barry Seal: a pilot who became a drug smuggler, who in turn became an informant, finding himself at the centre of the Iran-Contra scandal of Ronald Reagan’s era.

Seal’s love of flying blossomed early; he took his first solo flight at the age of 15, before gaining a pilot’s licence at 16, earning money by towing advertising banners. After serving in the Louisiana Army National Guard and Army Reserve, he joined Trans World Airlines in 1968 as a flight engineer, before becoming one of the youngest command pilots in the entire fleet.

American Made is pure Tom Cruise, all while history takes a backseat

According to his wife Deborah Seal, he became involved in drug smuggling in 1975. During the early 1980s, he developed a close relationship with the Medellin Cartel, whose leadership included Pablo Escobar. It was then that he moved his operations from his home state of Louisiana to an airstrip in rural west Arkansas.

In 1983, however, Seal was caught in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as he tried to smuggle a shipment of Quaaludes into the country. By his own admission, he had by then flown more than 100 flights of 600 to 1200 pounds of cocaine each, equating to between $3bn and $5bn worth of drugs into the US.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Former FBI agent Del Hahn, however, describes how Seal was desperate to avoid jail time ; after his offer to turn snitch was turned down multiple times, he eventually flew straight to DC and the office of the vice president’s drug task force. They sent him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Seal was soon enlisted into a sting operation. The aim? The Reagan administration was keen to see the Contras militia overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government which had installed itself in Nicaragua; Seal claimed the Sandinistas had made a deal with the Medellin Cartel, and proof of such could lend justification to the US’s support of the Contras, despite accusations of human rights violations amongst the counter-revolutionaries.

And so, the pilot flew into an airstrip in Nicaragua with CIA cameras installed on his plane, snapping pictures which showed Escobar and several other members of the Medellin Cartel loading kilos of cocaine onto a plane with the aid of Sandinista soldiers.

Seal claimed that one of the men present, Federico Vaughan, was an associate of Tomas Borge of the interior ministry of Nicaragua. However, Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny threw doubt over Seal’s accusations, claiming there was no evidence tying any Nicaraguan officials to the drug shipment.

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Others, however, jumped on Seal’s testimony. And that would be his undoing. A front page story in The Washington Times by Edmond Jacoby about links between Sandinista officials and the Medellin Cartel discussed Seal’s mission and appeared to out him as a government agent.

Cruise control: the film star is in his comfort zone in ‘American Made’

The DEA cut him loose, but that also left him vulnerable. He was later arrested by the FBI in Louisiana, though only received six months supervised probation; a condition of his sentence was that he spend every night, from 6pm to 6am, at the Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge.

It was outside of this building that he was shot and killed on 19 February, 1986. A friend said of the incident, “I saw Barry get killed from the window of the Belmont hotel coffee shop. The killers were both out of the car, one on either side, but I only saw one shoot, cause Barry saw it coming and just put his head down on the steering column.”

Colombian assassins sent by the Medellin Cartel were apprehended trying to leave Louisiana soon after Seal’s murder. Three of the men were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, some believe the CIA was behind the killing.

After his death, Louisiana attorney general William Guste hand-delivered a letter to US Attorney General Edwin Meese in protest at the government’s failure to protect Seal. Though he called him a “heinous criminal”, Guste added: “At the same time, for his own purposes, he had made himself an extremely valuable witness and informant in the country’s fight against illegal drugs.”

“Barry Seal’s murder suggests the need for an in-depth but rapid investigation into a number of areas. Why was such an important witness not given protection whether he wanted it or not?” There’s still no real answer to this question today.

‘American Made’ hits UK cinemas 25 August

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American Made

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American Made 's fast-and-loose attitude with its real-life story mirrors the cavalier -- and delightfully watchable -- energy Tom Cruise gives off in the leading role.

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American Made is Inspired by the Real Life of Barry Seal

‘American Made’ is a high-octane thriller that stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a TWA pilot who becomes embroiled in a world of espionage, drug smuggling, and covert missions. The 2017 film skillfully navigates the intricate political landscape of 1980s America, where government agencies use Seal’s unique skills for their purposes. As the story unfolds, viewers are drawn into a thrilling tale of an anti-hero who brings both excitement and a touch of swagger to the screen.

Directed by Doug Liman and featuring a stellar cast including Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, and Jayma Mays, ‘American Made’ offers an action-packed experience set against a backdrop that lends authenticity to the narrative. The film’s portrayal of a character like Barry Seal and his adventures might lead viewers to question the veracity of the story. You might find yourself questioning whether the central character and events depicted in the film are based on a true story or simply a product of someone’s imagination.

American Made is Based on a Real Pilot

‘American Made’ is inspired by the story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a TWA pilot who became involved in drug smuggling for the Medellín Cartel and later turned into an informant for the DEA. The 2017 film is driven by a script penned by Gary Spinelli and has been described as “a fun lie based on a true story.” While the movie takes creative liberties and departs from reality in many aspects to enhance its drama and narrative, it also incorporates elements of truth from Seal’s life.

Barry Seal was indeed a commercial airline pilot who began his career with Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1964. Impressively, at the young age of 26, he became one of the youngest Captains to operate a Boeing 707. Seal’s passion for flying was evident from a young age, as he obtained his student pilot’s license at just 15 years old. Additionally, he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard in 1961 and served with the 20th Special Forces Group for six years. It wasn’t until around 1975 that Seal ventured into drug smuggling, initially starting with marijuana and eventually transitioning to cocaine by 1978.

In the film, Barry Seal’s involvement with the Medellín Cartel is portrayed as a result of coercion, where he was abducted and left with no choice but to cooperate. However, in reality, his connection to the cartel began differently. In 1979, Seal was apprehended in Honduras with a substantial amount of cocaine, approximately 40 kilograms. He was subsequently incarcerated in a Honduran jail for nine months. It was during this time that he had a chance encounter with the New Orleans business manager of Jorge Ochoa, a key figure in the Medellín Cartel and was even nicknamed “El Gordo.” The Ochoa Family, along with notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar and others, were the founders and leaders of the Medellín Cartel.

‘American Made’ takes a significant departure from reality regarding Barry Seal’s involvement with the CIA. There is no concrete evidence to prove that the CIA directly intercepted his smuggling business and recruited him for their operations. However, there have been allegations, rumors, and conspiracy theories suggesting that the government turned a blind eye to Seal’s illegal activities because they may have been utilizing his services to transport weapons to Nicaraguan rebels.

During the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, the U.S. government secretly supported the rebels in their efforts to overthrow Nicaragua’s Communist Sandinista government. Pilots like Barry Seal were indeed employed to transport weapons to the rebels. Still, Seal’s direct and official connection to CIA operations in this regard remains unproven and subject to speculation. The movie dramatizes this connection for narrative purposes, but the real-life details are far more complex and controversial.

In 1983, Barry Seal’s long-standing evasion of the DEA came to an end when he attempted to smuggle a massive shipment of 200,000 units of Quaalude, a recreational drug, into the United States. His arrest unfolded at the hands of customs officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Faced with an imminent 10-year prison sentence, Seal pursued various avenues to escape incarceration. Initially, he sought a deal with a U.S. attorney, offering to provide information about the Ochoa family in exchange for leniency. However, this proposition was declined. In a bold move, he secured a meeting with Vice President George H.W. Bush’s anti-drug task force, hoping to demonstrate his potential as an informant.

Subsequently, they referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Recognizing Seal’s extensive knowledge and intricate connections within the cartel, the DEA eventually accepted his offer. Seal officially became a federal informant in March 1984. His cooperation proved invaluable, resulting in numerous convictions and the indictment of high-profile figures like Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa. While the film ‘American Made’ presents a somewhat patriotic facet of Barry Seal’s character, it’s crucial to acknowledge that the actual Seal was motivated by substantial financial gain. Per court records, he reportedly commanded exorbitant fees, earning up to $500,000 per flight for smuggling cocaine into the US.

By 1983, Seal’s amassed earnings reportedly reached an astounding $60 million, establishing him as one of the wealthiest individuals in the country. In the realm of drug smuggling, Seal’s illicit activities resulted in the transportation of an estimated $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs, including approximately 56 tons of cocaine, into the US. ‘American Made’ skillfully blends elements of fiction with the actual historical context, offering an entertaining cinematic experience and serving as an intriguing entry point for delving into the complex realities of the cartel’s dominance during that era.

Read More: American Made Review: Tom Cruise Delivers This Time

American Made Is a Super Cynical Crime Caper

Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal, a drug smuggler who worked for the CIA, in Doug Liman’s surprisingly caustic true-story film.

Domhnall Gleeson and Tom Cruise in 'American Made'

“It’s not a felony if you’re doing it for the good guys,” blares the tagline on the poster for American Made , Tom Cruise’s freewheeling new caper of a film about the life of Barry Seal. It’s the kind of sentiment Hollywood loves to celebrate—a rebel breaking the rules for an important cause, or even a patriotic one, as Seal did working off the books for the CIA. What better casting could there be for such a role than Cruise, sporting a shaggy ’70s hairdo and a pair of aviators, executing daredevil pilot moves as he flies around Central and South America? It’s Maverick from Top Gun all over again, just a little grimier.

Except Seal’s life was more than a little grimy—he was a grade-A drug smuggler, a favorite of the Medellín Cartel and Pablo Escobar. Whatever CIA benefactors he served were essentially blackmailing him into clandestine ops to serve shady operations like the Iran-Contra affair. The director Doug Liman takes advantage of Cruise in a fascinating way (much as he did with the star in Edge of Tomorrow , the duo’s last collaboration): by poking at his inherent charisma and peeling it back, mocking the very idea of the American cowboy hero at the center of his boisterous but refreshingly cynical tale.

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When we meet Seal, he’s a TWA pilot with a low-level smuggling business on the side, bringing a duffel bag of contraband with him on his flights to score a little extra dough. He’s approached by Monty (Domhnall Gleeson), a CIA agent with a proposition for him: Fly a little propeller plane over rebel bases in Central and South America, take some pictures, and maybe drop off some secret packages for Manuel Noriega, the U.S.-supported military leader in Panama. Good money, off the books, very hush-hush, but all in the name of serving his country.

Seal obliges, and quickly things spiral out of control. Escobar, then on the rise in Colombia, takes note of Seal’s secret flights and demands he start shipping bricks of cocaine on the way back, dumping them out of the air in Louisiana to avoid the DEA. The CIA eventually cottons on but allows the whole thing to continue, as long as Seal can smuggle back some guns for the Contras fighting in Nicaragua. Escobar tolerates that, as long as Seal can operate a whole fleet of cocaine planes to keep his product moving. On and on it goes, with both sides tacitly ignoring the other so that Seal can keep operating extralegally wherever he goes.

Liman and his screenwriter Gary Spinelli tell the tale with all the freewheeling charm required of a caper picture. But American Made never lets the audience forget just how shadily the CIA is behaving throughout, even though Seal is always along for the ride. He has to be—the house of cards he’s built collapses if any of the extralegal organizations he’s working with gets sick of him—and Cruise plays Seal as breezy with just a hint of desperation.

Cruise, one of the last titans of the 1990s who’s still regularly churning out these kinds of star-driven vehicles, already had one flop this year— The Mummy —in which he strained credulity as a virile, strapping young adventurer. At 55, Cruise is far older than the man he’s playing (who was 40 at the height of his CIA misadventures, though his life story has been significantly smoothed out and Hollywoodized). But Liman uses Cruise’s age mostly to his advantage, playing up the cracks in Cruise’s façade, especially as Seal tries to convince his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) that his newfound wealth isn’t ill-gotten.

American Made ’s best set pieces revolve around Seal’s obvious lie; it’s quite something to watch the smuggler, covered in blood, cheerfully shoving clothes in a garbage bag and telling Lucy they have to leave home before the sun rises. At another point, a drug run gets interrupted by the DEA and Seal ends up ditching the plan in a small town in Louisiana, getting away from the cops on a children’s bicycle while covered in cocaine. It’s been a while since Cruise made a movie this risky, but American Made is exactly that—it’s a story where Ronald Reagan ends up as the ultimate villain, and Pablo Escobar comes across as the most level-headed of Seal’s bosses.

Liman’s visual panache is lacking at times. The action scenes are often shoddily edited, keeping Seal’s daring flights from feeling genuinely thrilling, and whatever late ’70s/early ’80s look he’s aiming for is absent outside of the hairdos. Cruise, for all his live-wire energy (and he has a lot of it), should probably stop making films that so willfully deny his age, even though he’s talented enough to make it work for two hours. But by the time the movie roared to its shockingly grim, remarkably embittered ending, American Made had won me over. Barry Seal, it turns out, isn’t a hero worth rooting for—but neither are the “good guys” handing him the keys to the plane.

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If you happened to be traveling along a swampy, mosquito-infested route between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La., back in the freewheeling 1980s, you may have witnessed an unusual occurrence: a half-dozen or so military duffle bags, each stuffed with 110 pounds of pure cocaine, plummeting from the sky.

The man behind the drop was Barry Seal, who pushed them through a secret hatch in the floor of his airplane, installed there for precisely this purpose. One of the drug world’s most daring and ingenious smugglers, Seal was an action junkie who flew low and used Gulf of Mexico oil platforms to hide his presence. Associates, stationed below, retrieved the bags, each containing more than $1 million worth of product.

Colombian drug kingpins knew the burly, middle-aged pilot as El Gordo: “The Fat Man.” American drug distributors valued him as their version of Fed Ex. DEA agents regarded Seal as a man who needed to be turned and used to fight the drug war.

His story — which brims with conspiracy theories that range from him having dealings with a pre-assassination Lee Harvey Oswald to his functioning as a teenage gunrunner — inspired the movie “American Made,” out Friday . Tom Cruise plays the smuggler with the cocky swagger that endeared Seal to some — and might have heralded his undoing.

“He bragged to other pilots about having earned millions,” “American Made” screenwriter Gary Spinelli told The Post. “I don’t think he helped himself by rubbing people’s noses in it.”

Del Hahn — a former FBI agent who tracked Seal, interrogated him and later wrote about the man in the 2016 book “ Smuggler’s End ” (Pelican Publishing) — remembered what Seal did upon recognizing an FBI surveillance plane that had been following him. “He ran out onto his driveway and started shaking a towel at us,” Hahn said. The move cheekily signaled the law enforcers that they had been made.

From 1975 until the early 1980s, Seal became one of the narco-world’s go-to smugglers. He was honest, adept and innovative. Plus he didn’t do drugs or drink. By all indications, Seal was in it for adventure and challenge — all of which got amped up in 1984, when he became what NBC News called “one of the most daring and important government operatives.”

Born Adler Berriman Seal, the future smuggler grew up in Baton Rouge, La. Naturally drawn to aviation, he hung out at the local airport and secured a student pilot’s license at age 15. As a teenager, according to Spinelli, Seal impressed a girl by landing a plane on the 50-yard line of their high school’s football field before asking her out on a date. He dropped out of college, married his first wife in 1963 and got hired by TWA in ’67. The initial marriage ended in divorce; he married two more times and fathered four children.

Seal’s transformation to criminal flyboy began in 1972, after the then-33-year-old command pilot went on medical leave from TWA due to a shoulder injury.

During a time when pilots at loose ends were a rarity, a friend of Seal’s by the name of Joe Mazzuka (who, in turn, was acquainted with mob-tied Murray Kessler) recruited the injured Seal to fly explosives to Cuba. Seal justified his actions to himself by believing he was delivering them to forces plotting the overthrow of Fidel Castro. The plan, however, turned out to be a sting operation, aimed at an accomplice. Seal, Mazzuka and six others were busted. But when it came time for the trial, in 1974, key prosecution witnesses were unavailable and the judge declared a mistrial.

‘He bragged to other pilots about having earned millions. I don’t think he helped himself by rubbing people’s noses in it.’ - Gary Spinelli

Nevertheless, Seal lost his TWA job. So, using underground connections and possibly seeking work in Mexico, he turned to smuggling weed, then pills, then cocaine, favoring his souped-up twin-engine Piper Navajo for the jobs that had him flying in and out of discreet airstrips in Louisiana and Arkansas.

“He was so good at getting product back and forth,” said Evan Wright, author of “American Desperado,” a book focused on the ’80s drug trade. “He understood fueling, distances, how to hide on the Louisiana coast.”

His finances became so robust that, as depicted in “American Made,” a bank in Mena, Ark., turned an entire vault over to Seal and built a smaller one for other customers to share. Spinelli describes Seal as having “half a football field’s worth of cash — and each bill was a crime.”

While it’s unclear how much he made, in 1986 Seal boasted about having brought 20,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States. Considering that he received $2,700 per pound smuggled, he would have earned $54 million (worth at least $126 million in 2017 valuations). Spinelli said Seal blew money on jewelry for his wife. Hahn reported that he spent cash on aircraft and possessed two boats.

However, Seal hardly came off as a kingpin. “Barry Seal was a nerd. He loved planes — and as long as he had one to play with, he was happy,” said Wright. But he wasn’t exactly careful. “He was a loudmouth and drove a ridiculously showy Cadillac convertible. He liked being a big man,” Wright added. He even trained his former brother-in-law, William Bottoms, to fly in blow while Seal guided him via radio.

If Seal truly was in it for the adventure, he got what he wanted: jailtime in Honduras, a plane shot down over Nicaragua with him in the pilot’s seat and a crash in Colombia out of which he managed to escape uninjured. But in 1983, when Seal got busted by the DEA with a reported 200,000 counterfeit Quaaludes that he had transported into Fort Lauderdale, things turned serious.

To avoid 10 years in prison, he became a DEA snitch — procuring evidence against major Central American players including Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar.

For risk-loving Seal, the arrangement proved cozy. He transported at least one 1,400-pound load for the DEA. Additionally, he may have quietly smuggled plenty more while working as an informant — and it appears to have gone beyond drugs.

In the book “ American Desperado ,” Jon Roberts, a now-deceased narcotics trafficker originally from New York City, recalled how “The one time I flew with him [Seal] to Nicaragua [transporting guns, supposedly on behalf of the CIA, in 1983 or 1984], I had told him I was uptight. Barry said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re working for Vice President Bush.’” (The CIA has denied any connections with Seal.)

On June 26, 1984, Seal embarked on an undercover trip that would have him bringing 1,465 pounds of cocaine from Nicaragua to the US Air Force base in Homestead, Fla. He somehow convinced Escobar to be on an airstrip and to help Sandinistas load drugs onto the plane. Via hidden camera, Seal and his co-pilot snapped them in the act.

But somehow, Seal wound up in the shots — and in the news. A July 17, 1984, story on the front page of the Washington Times, leaked to reporter Edmond Jacoby, exposed Seal without naming him. Two days later, a similar article appeared in the New York Times, detailing the amount of cocaine that Seal had smuggled in from Nicaragua. It named Nicaraguan officials as well as Escobar and Ochoa as collaborators.

“He knew he was screwed,” said Spinelli. “But Barry turned down witness protection because he was told that he could never again fly a plane. That would have been worse than death.”

Or maybe not. In 1986 — the same year the IRS concluded that he owed $29 million in taxes and placed a federal lien on him — Seal, who was slated to testify in court against Ochoa, was gunned down behind the wheel of his Cadillac. It transpired in the parking lot of a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house, where he was staying as a condition of probation for a money laundering and cocaine possession plea agreement that dated back to 1984. The shooters were a pair of Medellin Cartel hitmen, sent from Colombia to show what happens to rats. An eyewitness spotted the getaway car. Before they could leave the United States, both killers were in police custody.

A lightning rod for conspiracy theories to the end, after his shooting Seal left behind a whopper. “Supposedly,” said Spinelli, “he died with George Bush’s phone number in his briefcase.”

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Why Bill Clinton And George W. Bush Are Portrayed In A Tom Cruise Movie About An Infamous Drug Smuggler

"I just wanted to just sort of say, 'We're not ignorant of those allegations,’” said American Made director Doug Liman. Warning: This story contains SPOILERS.

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Reporting From

Tom Cruise in American Made .

American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. Seal's exploits brought him into close contact with infamous figures like Medellín cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega — and he was abetted, the film argues, by the CIA and DEA.

The most eyebrow-raising moments in American Made , however, come when Seal crosses paths with two other major historical figures: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

American Made screenwriter Gary Spinelli ( Stash House ) was interested in the Mena, Arkansas, story as possible fodder for a screenplay, and in his research, he kept coming across Seal. Along with Seal's wildly successful drug smuggling operation, and his subsequent cooperation with the DEA as an informant against the Medellín cartel, Spinelli discovered allegations that Seal was also flying missions for the CIA's campaign to support Contra rebels in Nicaragua — all of which transformed into the Iran-Contra scandal, and dominated President Ronald Reagan's second term.

As is to be expected from purported involvement in clandestine operations, Seal's work with the CIA remains in dispute . But in their interviews with BuzzFeed News, Spinelli and director Doug Liman ( Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity ) said that they were totally comfortable connecting Seal with the CIA based on the basic deduction that Seal could not have pulled off the massive scale of his drug smuggling operation without outside help. "He was flying in and out of the country, unbeknownst to all law enforcement, and it's pretty improbable that he would be able to do that on his own," said Spinelli.

Director Doug Liman and Cruise on the set of American Made .

Seal was murdered in 1986 , by Colombian nationals allegedly carrying out a contract on his life — a fact that, coupled with the fuzzy details surrounding his possible collusion with federal intelligence officials, makes him terrific fodder for a different kind of storytelling, and is ultimately what led the filmmakers to include Clinton and Bush in American Made .

"Barry Seal is like a conspiracy theorist magnet for the left and the right," said Liman.

For example, Spinelli said, "one of the big conspiracy theories around Barry is that he was [George] H.W. Bush's personal pilot, and when Barry was killed, he had Bush's phone number in his back pocket."

Neither filmmaker felt it was appropriate to include that unsubstantiated theory, but they also knew that astute audience members might already be familiar with it. Which is how American Made , which opens Sept. 29, ended up with a scene in which Seal is waiting for a meeting at the White House while sitting next to a young George W. Bush (Connor Trinneer) as they exchange small talk about piloting planes.

"I just wanted to put a little fun thing between Barry and George W. Bush to just sort of say, 'We're not ignorant of those allegations,'" said Liman. "'We're not going to put them in the movie, but we're not making this movie in a vacuum, either.'"

Spinelli said that since Seal reportedly did visit the Reagan White House, he was OK with placing him next to Bush, who also regularly visited the White House when his father was vice president. "You know, there's dramatic license there, but both [Seal and Bush] were pilots, and I just thought it would be a cool moment to have [H.W. Bush's] son meet Barry in the hallway," he said. (Representatives for George W. Bush did not respond to a request to comment.)

Left: An early photo of Bill Clinton, governor-elect of Arkansas. Right: George W. Bush in an undated photo in Arlington, Texas, speaking during a Texas Rangers game.

Seal's connection to Clinton, meanwhile, is even more fraught with conspiracies: Some claim that, as governor of Arkansas, Clinton actively participated with the CIA in smuggling cocaine into the US. Googling Clinton's and Seal's names together produces reams of stories with screaming headlines like "Mena Coverup - Bill & Hillary Clinton's Arkansas Cocaine Operation" and "EXPOSED: Clinton's Trafficked MASSIVE CIA Shipments of Cocaine" and "SNOW JOB: THE CIA, COCAINE, AND BILL CLINTON."

Before American Made went into production, Liman actually cut allegations in Spinelli's original script that the CIA was directly trafficking in cocaine with Seal — in part because, as fate would have it, the chief counsel for the Senate's investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal was Liman's late father, Arthur L. Liman. "My father's deputy said he had looked into those specific allegations and found them so without merit that he didn't even put it in the report to deny it because that gives it some weight," Liman said.

But both Spinelli and Liman understood that, as with the Bush family, they couldn't tell Seal's story and not at least tip their hats to the cottage industry of fringe Clinton conspiracies involving him. So they included a scene in which, after Seal has been arrested by multiple agencies, the attorney general of Arkansas fields a call from then-governor Clinton. Afterwards, Seal is released from custody and immediately whisked away to the White House — the implication being that Clinton had been asked by the Reagan administration to cut Seal loose so he could begin informing for the DEA.

Clinton never appears in the scene — we only know it's him on the phone after the state attorney general calls him "Bill" — but the filmmakers claim that this event, or at least something like it, did happen.

"We knew that somehow Barry was operating with immunity. The CIA was operating with immunity in Arkansas. So there had to have been some involvement of the governor's office," said Liman. "There is a prosecutor in Arkansas who was told to back off. And so we combined that with the fact that the CIA was for sure operating in Arkansas and Clinton was the governor, to condense it down into one specific moment."

Cruise in American Made .

In a 1994 press conference, President Clinton was asked specifically about how much he knew about the CIA's alleged operation in Mena, Arkansas. "They didn't tell me anything about it," Clinton said. "The airport in question and all the events in question were the subject of state and federal inquiries. It was primarily a matter for federal jurisdiction. The state really had next to nothing to do with it. … We had nothing — zero — to do with it. And everybody who's ever looked into it knows that." (A representative for Clinton did not respond to a request seeking further comment.)

While both Spinelli and Liman stand by American Made ’s assertions, they ultimately set out to make an entertaining movie — and by having Seal narrate his own story, they can couch their narrative in his subjective point of view. "He really is telling you his version of it," said Spinelli. "What the facts are of the record don't matter as much as what Barry thought had happened."

"Nowhere does the film deal with the consequences of Barry's actions," added Liman. "Barry doesn't tell you the part of the story where, say, American inner cities are being decimated by the influx of drugs. That's not part of Barry's narrative. … We're not making a biopic. We're more interested in the mechanics of how an operation like this works, and the kinds of people that get involved. Because it's really fun." Particularly when it potentially involves former presidents.

Thumbnail photo credits: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive; David James / Universal Pictures; Rich Pilling / Getty Images

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The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

Here’s what we know about Seal — and what’s still up for debate.

MORE: Review: American Made Lets a Smug Tom Cruise Just Be Tom Cruise

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

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‘American Made’ Trailer: Tom Cruise is a Drug Smuggler Turned CIA Informant in Wild True Story

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Before Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman get to work on the much anticipated “Edge of Tomorrow” sequel, the duo will bring one of the CIA’s most infamous true stories to the big screen this fall. “ American Made ” stars Cruise as Barry Seal, an airline pilot turned drug smuggler turned CIA informant who worked with the Medellin Cartel and was assassinated at age 46. It’s not going to have the alien combat of “Edge of Tomorrow,” but it’s surely going to be just as wild.

READ MORE: Doug Liman Has a Title In Mind For An ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Sequel, And It’s Not ‘Edge of Tomorrow 2’

“American Made” marks Liman’s return to Universal Pictures for the first time since “The Bourne Identity.” Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are producing through their Imagine Entertainment banner, while Sarah Wright, Domhnall Gleeson, Jayma Mays, Jesse Plemons and Lola Kirke are staring in supporting roles.

The movie finds cruise returning to adult-oriented drama for the first time in almost a decade. Aside from the 2012 musical “Rock of Ages,” Cruise has spent the last several years strictly starring in big-budget action blockbusters, including “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Oblivion” and the “Jack Reacher” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises. He’s front and center in “The Mummy” reboot, which opens in theaters Friday and is the first installment in Universal’s new monster movie universe.

“American Made” opens in theaters September 29. Watch the first trailer below.

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American Made exposes the behind-the-scenes politics of the drug trade in the 1980s, shedding light on the complex bigger picture.
Barry Seal's death is believed to have been orchestrated by the drug cartel for revealing sensitive information to the DEA, but conspiracy theories also suggest CIA involvement.
The ending of American Made hints at the Iran-Contra scandal, showcasing how the CIA funded right-wing militants through selling American firearms in Iran.

American Made recreates the dramatic true story of Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who smuggled pile-loads of million-dollar drugs, only to become a DEA informant and then meet an unfortunate end. Tom Cruise reunited with Edge of Tomorrow filmmaker Doug Liman to play Seal in the 2017 biopic. Earning positive reactions from critics and audiences alike, American Made had its fair share of creative liberties, but it still did a faithful job of exposing the behind-the-scenes politics of the drug trade in the 1980s. While Seal did make a fortune out of his high-profile drug operations, he was just a part of the more complex bigger picture.

The American Made ending exemplifies the socio-political realities of the era by not only delving into Seal’s untimely death but also the steps that the American government took in its aftermath. From Moby’s goosebumps-inducing “Extreme Ways” establishing a Bourne movie tradition in The Bourne Identity to John Newman’s rousing ballad “Love Me Again” closing Edge of Tomorrow , Doug Liman’s best movies end with iconic tracks. American Made is no exception as its climatic events play in the backdrop of The Heavy’s power anthem “What Makes A Good Man.” Even though the song is a 2012 release, the ending reveals some era-defining moments of the' 80s.

Why Is Barry Seal Killed?

After years of flying stealth-heavy missions for the CIA and later smuggling drugs for Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel, Barry Seal is at his wit’s end by American Made ’s third act. Following a desperate attempt to crash-land a plan to evade arrest from the DEA, Seal gives himself up to the authorities. In the tradition of classic crime movie finales like the ending of Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street , Seal willingly gives up his information and contacts to the DEA in exchange for protection. For his illicit operations, the ever-smiling aviator is still punished. Serving his sentence of 1,000 hours of community service, all seems to be fine for Seal.

This is, of course, until he gets mysteriously shot dead. The American Made ending suggests that the cartel had him murdered for revealing sensitive information to the DEA. More or less, this is the general theory that is accepted to explain Seal’s death even as conspiracy theories on the Internet suggest that his murder might have been orchestrated by the CIA itself. In fact, Seal’s widow Deborah DuBois Seal even told The Daily Mail in 2017 that the US government didn’t do much to protect her husband after he came clean as an informant. She adds that even she doesn’t know who exactly might have been behind Seal’s assassination.

Why The CIA Destroyed All Connections With Seal

Even though the CIA’s involvement in hiring Barry Seal subsequently became public knowledge, American Made suggests that the secret agency immediately destroyed all evidence connecting it with the infamous aviator after he was murdered. While there is no concrete evidence to support how the CIA hid such evidence, it is probably standard agency protocol to hide all connections after a major drug supplier like Seal died. Even before he got involved with the Cartel, the CIA’s instructions to Seal to conduct aerial surveillance over Central America were always meant to be a hushed-up affair. However, it must be noted that Monty Schafer, the CIA officer who recruited Seal, was fictional.

How The CIA Funded The Contras

While Domhnall Gleeson’s character Monty Schafer wasn’t real and was just created to represent the collective state of CIA at the time, Monty’s actions at the very end of American Made are of utmost importance in American history. Moments after Barry Seal’s death, an elated Monty is found suggesting to his seniors to fund the Nicaraguan right-wing militant group Contras through all the funds that the Agency can secure by selling American firearms in Iran. This strategy did work as a perfect way to replace the funds that were otherwise raised by Seal’s constant drug-smuggling operations. Hence, within just a matter of seconds, American Made hints at the Iran-Contra scandal.

To make the ending more realistic, the final seconds also feature actual archival footage of then-President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President George Bush being questioned about claims of America arming Iranian terrorists to wage war elsewhere in Latin American countries. Both leaders are shown dodging journalists’ questions even though it’s left for the viewer to deduce what actually happened. By now, it’s common knowledge that the Iran-Contra affair was an effort by the Reagan administration to oust the left-leaving government in Nicaragua at a time when the Cold War was still in effect. As for Barry Seal, he was unfortunately just a pawn who was forgotten after his death.

What Happened To Lucy Seal?

Barry Seal’s wife Lucy is played by Sarah Wright in American Made , the character being a dramatized version of Seal’s third wife Deborah DuBois Seal . The final scene of American Made features Lucy and her three children resettling in Baton Rouge where she works as a waitress. Following her husband’s death, it’s clear that she picked up a job at a fast-food restaurant to make ends meet. This is in stark contrast with the upscale life she led earlier, thanks to Seal’s million-dollar missions. But as the camera zooms in on an expensive-looking bracelet on Lucy’s wrist, the ending suggests that maybe, she hasn’t parted from all her wealth.

The real-life fate of Deborah Seal was similar as she told The Daily Mail that she and her children had to struggle financially following her husband’s death. In the same interview, she also revealed that she had actually crossed paths with Barry first when she was working as a waitress. It’s only an ill-fated irony that the American Made ending finds Deborah’s on-screen version Lucy picking up a waitressing job. It’s unclear how much Deborah Seal paid by the movie’s producers to secure the rights to her husband’s life story, but she did add that she had been living only a modest life for the past few decades.

The Real Meaning Of American Made's Ending

Some of Tom Cruise’s best movies have offered introspective critiques of the military and the government. Born on the Fourth of July , A Few Good Men and Lions for Lambs are some cases in point. One way or the other, American Made continues this tradition for Cruise, and it exposes how America’s militaristic hegemony can influence global geopolitics at a concerning level. Doug Liman doesn’t rely on any preachy discourse to criticize the corruption behind the drug trade as the ending of American Made shows, the director crafts an entertaining yet alarming attempt to satirize the inner workings of an infamous secret agency.

American Made (2017)

‘American Made’ - The True Story Behind the Tom Cruise Film

Tom Cruise's dedication to his craft is best known, often risking his own life for stunning action sequences, much like the characters he portrays.
American Made is based on the life of Barry Seal, a real American pilot involved in smuggling activities and recruited by the CIA for top-secret missions.
While the film includes elements from Seal's life, certain segments were sensationalized for entertainment purposes, making it a "fun lie based on a true story."

Between Ethan Hunt, Jack Reacher, and Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise has played more than a few wild characters whose lives are completely ridiculous. Cruise’s dedication to his craft is perhaps his best-known attribute, as he has often risked his own life for the sake of creating a stunning action sequence. Perhaps Cruise looks for roles that say something about his own personality; his characters often have the same cocky charm and unflinching bravery that he does. It only made sense that Cruise would play the real American pilot Barry Seal in American Made , as Seal was just as much of a character in real life. Although the 2017 biopic included many of Seal’s real adventures, the film only scratches the surface of what really happened.

American Made

The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.

Release Date September 29, 2017

Director Doug Liman

Cast Caleb Landry Jones, Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons

Runtime 115 minutes

Main Genre Action

Genres Comedy, Action, Crime

Studio Universal Pictures

What Is ‘American Made’ About?

American Made explores how the Louisiana commercial TWA pilot Barry Seal was recruited by the enigmatic CIA case officer Monty Schafer ( Domhnall Gleeson ), who discovered Seal’s illegal practice of smuggling Cuban cigars to Canada. While Seal claims that this is a common practice among commercial pilots, he realizes that any evidence of criminal activity on his part could cost him his job. To Seal’s surprise, Schafer isn’t there to catch Seal in action, but to recruit him for a top-secret mission. The CIA had taken note of Seal’s abilities; his adept flying skills make him virtually undetectable , and have made him into one of the most lucrative smugglers in the air. To waste Seal’s skills would be a disservice; Schafer wants Seal to help the CIA perform a series of top-secret reconnaissance missions in Central America as they observe the ongoing cartel war.

Seal agrees, and begins using the CIA’s retrofitted twin-engine Piper Smith Aerostar 600 to fly throughout Central America, taking photos of the ongoing conflict. Although Seal initially tells his wife Lucy ( Sarah Wright ) that his trips are nothing more than a series of routine flights for TWA, she quickly realizes that the cash that he is bringing home is not befitting of a standard commercial pilot. Seal has a knack for adventure, and doesn’t mind taking a few risky missions if it’s on the government’s watch. However, he begins to take on more dangerous assignments once Schafer asks him to serve as a commissary between the United States intelligence services and General Manuel Noriega, the authoritarian dictator that ruled Panama with an iron fist. While a standard CIA officer may have had trouble connecting with Noriega, Seal’s unofficial status made the Central American leaders less suspicious . Seal finds that he is in somewhat of a middle ground between the two parties; he isn’t technically a spy or a criminal.

The 10 Most Underrated Tom Cruise Movies, Ranked

Seal soon learns that playing both sides can be even more lucrative than his initial assignment. After returning from a surveillance mission, the Medellin Cartel recruits Seal to smuggle cocaine back into the United States. Instead of landing in official airports where he could be intercepted by U.S. officials, Seal chooses to dump his cargo outside in the Louisiana countryside. While the CIA begins to turn a blind eye to Seal’s activities due to their previous agreement, the DEA does not have any patience for him . Seal is tracked down by DEA and FBI agents as he continues to serve as an emissary for various cartel leaders. The situation grows dangerous when Seal becomes caught within the warring factions he represents. His eccentric brother-in-law JB ( Caleb Landry Jones ) is killed by a carb bomb planted by the Medellin Cartel after his reckless spending gains the attention of the FBI.

While Seal is initially caught by the FBI, he’s able to use his connections with central intelligence to broker a deal with The White House. Seal knows too many secrets about the country’s overseas activities and intervention in the drug war that he holds a surprising amount of leverage. However, Seal ended up paying the price for JB’s recklessness. After photos of Seal are released by the White House as propaganda, the CIA shuts down their convert program and ends up leaving Seal out to dry. Seal is convicted and sentenced for his crimes, but only ends up doing community service. Ironically, jail may have actually protected him, a s Seal lives his last few days on the run . He continues moving from motel to motel as he avoids detection by the CIA and cartel. A car bomb kills Seal, but the CIA declines to make any official comments about his actions; Schafer actually ends up getting a promotion for the initial pitch he had made to Seal.

How Much of ‘American Made’ Is True?

While the events of American Made are based on Seal’s actual life, certain segments of the story were sensationalized for the sake of making an entertaining film. Director Doug Liman , who previously helmed Cruise in the 2014 science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow , admitted that the film is “a fun lie based on a true story.” American Made may have been one of Cruise’s best films in recent years, but it is not intended (or pretending to be) an entirely factual account of what actually happened to Seal.

Certain elements of the film are true; the real Seal did obtain his pilot’s license by the time that he was a teenager, and used his connections to the cartels and CIA to help negotiate his way out of a prison sentence with the DEA . Seal’s exact deal with the CIA is largely contested, as many details surrounding his actual assignments remain classified. Seal’s assassination in 1968 by two Columbian hitmen was observed by many witnesses. While reports indicate that Seal’s personality was indeed as colorful as Cruise made it out to be, the film’s notion that he was friendly with the Central American drug lords is largely fictional. Similarly, the real Seal did marry a woman named Lucy, but most elements of their relationship were dramatized for the sake of the film.

American Made is one of Cruise’s stronger efforts in recent years. While it’s great to see him reprise his role as Ethan Hunt and continue his legacy as the greatest action star of the generation, Cruise is often a much better actor than he is given credit for. It’s easy to forget that one of his breakthrough roles was in Oliver Stone ’s biopic Born on the Fourth of July . It’s interesting to see Cruise strip away his persona to play a real person, but any notion that American Made is a “realistic” depiction of Seal’s life is entirely preposterous.

American Made is now available to rent or buy on Prime Video.

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‘American Made’ - The True Story Behind the Tom Cruise Film

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Farcical And Madcap, 'American Made' Stars Tom Cruise At His Best

David Edelstein

Cruise plays a drug-smuggling pilot working for the DEA, CIA and Medellin Cartel in his new film, a dark comedy set in the '80s. Critic David Edelstein calls American Made "breathlessly entertaining."

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Review: ‘American Made’ Has Tom Cruise. And Lies, Spies and Coke.

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By Manohla Dargis

Sept. 28, 2017

The tagline for “American Made,” a breezily, at times woozily rollicking Tom Cruise vehicle, announces that it is “based on a true lie” — though the movie also asserts that it is based on a true story. But who’s quibbling? This is, after all, a Hollywood fantasy starring Mr. Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life smuggler. An enigma with multiple chins, Mr. Seal was apparently known as El Gordo (the Fat Man), a name he may have picked up while working for a drug cartel, the C.I.A. or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

It can be hard to keep tabs on the movie’s Barry, a pilot who racks up lots of miles while serving different masters. When the story opens, he is flying for T.W.A. and bored out of his evidently simple, rather dangerously restless mind. On the job, he amuses himself by flipping a few switches, jerking the controls and abruptly awakening sleeping passengers. His life takes a wild turn when a shady C.I.A. smiler, Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), makes Barry an offer to help his country or something. Before long, Barry is cozying up to Pablo Escobar and smuggling cocaine and AK-47s across the Americas. Every so often, he drops into Panama to swap packages with that country’s strongman, Manuel Noriega.

This kind of secret world is familiar terrain for the director Doug Liman, who kick-started the “Bourne” spy franchise and directed “ Fair Game ,” a fictional take on some real-world intrigue involving Valerie Plame Wilson , a former C.I.A. officer, and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a onetime diplomat. “American Made,” in its self-amused tone and skittering rhythms, though, is closer to the thriller “ Edge of Tomorrow ,” Mr. Liman and Mr. Cruise’s movie about a man — a wrong-guy, wrong-place type — who dies to live another day only to die (repeat). Mr. Liman likes playing with Mr. Cruise’s persona, say, by messing up that famous smile, and he clearly likes letting his star strut and glide.

Mr. Liman also likes stories about people with secret selves. Maybe it’s an interest he picked up from his father, Arthur L. Liman , who was the chief counsel to the Senate committee during its 1987 Iran-contra investigation. The real Mr. Seal may have played a jaw-droppingly outlandish role in that notorious affair, which, among many other byzantine turns, involved the National Security Council funneling aid to the Nicaraguan contras. The scandal encompassed a vast cast of characters that included President Ronald Reagan and Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North. A few show up in “American Made” either as fictionalized supporting characters or as themselves, smiling and slinking in archival images.

Written by Gary Spinelli, “American Made” goes down easily, especially if you don’t let the historical record with its real-world stakes bother you. Mr. Cruise’s brisk, ingratiating performance — all smiles, hard-charging physicality and beads of sweat — does a lot to soften the edges. But Mr. Liman doesn’t press Mr. Cruise to dig into the character, and the actor mostly hurdles forward in a movie that never gets around to asking what makes Barry run and why. So Barry just runs and he flies and he flies some more, delivering coke and accumulating suitcases of cash that he buries and stashes in closets. (It’s hard not to think that Mr. Cruise signed on to the movie so he could do all his own flying.)

There’s a lot going for “American Made,” which spins like a top and has the visually beguiling, somewhat jaundiced look of a faded old Polaroid. So it’s too bad that Mr. Liman himself didn’t burrow in here as a filmmaker. The real Mr. Seal has been both the main and side attraction in many articles, books, documentaries and hard-core propaganda flicks, including some hinged on the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex which emerged during the Clinton presidency. Mr. Seal was also the subject of “Doublecrossed,” a 1991 HBO docudrama starring Dennis Hopper (which is vaguely amusing if only because Mr. Hopper played a very different coke smuggler in “ Easy Rider ”).

“American Made” encourages and earns your laughter, although it also provokes skepticism, particularly in its attempt to portray Barry as a picaresque hero, one of those rogues tumbling and swaggering from adventure to adventure in a world that’s more corrupt than they are. After all, it asks, how bad can Barry really be, especially given the company he keeps? He doesn’t kill anyone, not exactly, and he’s nice to his wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright Olsen), and their kids. A slightly downscale version of Margot Robbie’s character in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Lucy has a few tangy moments, but she and the kids mostly enhance the visual design, much like the period cars and costumes.

There are moments when it feels as if Mr. Liman’s breakneck pacing is partly an attempt to distract us, to keep us from looking or thinking too hard about the grotesquely corrupt circus parading onscreen. Mr. Cruise’s performance often seems similarly calculated. Barry likes to leap before he thinks: “All this is legal?” he asks, scarcely pausing before plunging into the fray — and Mr. Cruise regularly widens his eyes in what seems to be an effort to convey Barry’s incredulity. It’s dissembling that is about as convincing as the Wolf leering in granny’s nightie. In truth, this Barry is just another ugly American, a happy hustler with a what-me-worry smile and a foot planted on another man’s throat.

American Made Rated R for very bad behavior. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

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Low flying and high adventure in the true crime movie american made.

Wherein Tom Cruise uses his pilot’s license while on the job.

The new movie American Made, which opens today, is not a documentary. Director Doug Liman, whose credits include The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow, calls it “a fun lie based on a true story.” But the broad strokes of this low-altitude tall tale are factual: Barry Seal was a former TWA pilot who was recruited by the CIA, and he continued to work for the agency even after he became a smuggler for Colombian “King of Cocaine” Pablo Escobar. His concurrent careers in aviation, spycraft, and narcotrafficking came to an abrupt end when he was murdered in 1986.

The real Seal looked more like Beau Bridges than Tom Cruise, his Hollywood alter-ego. And although some of the film was shot on location in Colombia, that country also doubles for Panama, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, as Seal becomes more involved in the shadow war in Central America during the mid-80s. The small town of Ball Ground, Georgia, and its nearby Cherokee County Airport, stand in for Mena, Arkansas and other locations.

American Made strives for verisimilitude in one other way: Liman, who, like his star, is a pilot, says that Cruise performed the flying scenes in a six-seat Piper Aerostar 600 and a Cessna 414 himself. Cruise, who is well-known for performing outlandish stunts in his films, is listed deep in the film’s credits as the “Aerostar and Cessna Stunt Pilot,” followed by stunt pilots Jimmy Garland and Alan Purwin.

Those two figured in a tragedy while American Made was in production . Purwin was killed and Garland severely injured when the Aerostar they were flying in crashed during a flight from Santa Fe de Antioquia to Medellín in September 2015. Passenger Carlos Berl also died in the accident, which did not occur during filming. The families of both victims are suing American Made ’s various financiers, alleging negligence and lax safety procedures. The movie’s credited aerial coordinator is Fred North, a veteran helicopter pilot who has worked behind the scenes on dozens of film productions over the last 20 years, and who appears on-camera as a pilot in several movies, including the 2016 blockbuster Captain America: Civil War and Deepwater Horizon .

Also seen briefly in the film is a Fairchild C-123K Provider transport aircraft the producers obtained from the Air Heritage Museum in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. This particular aircraft served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 until it was declared surplus in 1985. In real life, a C-123 carrying a shipment of AK-47s and other small arms intended for Contra fighters was shot down over Nicaragua by a Sandinista armed with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile in October 1986. CIA pilots Wallace “Buzz” Sawyer and William Cooper died in that crash. The subsequent Iran-Contra scandal brought to light that the American spy agency had been covertly supplying arms and supplies to the Contras.

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American Made [Movie]

The 2017 film American Made , starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, and Sarah Wright Olsen, is a fictionalized retelling of events in the life of smuggler and pilot Barry Seal, who, during the 1980s, transported drugs and guns between Central America and the United States. The film was written by Gary Spinelli and directed by Doug Liman. Although not filmed in Arkansas, parts of the film are set in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Mena (Polk County) . American Made had an estimated budget of $50 million and was released in the United States on September 29, 2017.

The film opens in 1978 with Cruise playing commercial airline pilot Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, who occasionally smuggles contraband on his flights. At an airport bar, Seal meets fictional CIA agent Monty Schafer (Gleeson), who takes Seal to an airport hangar, where he shows him a new twin-engine airplane and offers him a “covert” job taking aerial photographs of rebel encampments in Central America for a company called Independent Aviation Consultants (IAC). Agent Schafer tells Seal that Seal will be the head of the company. But he warns that if anyone, including Seal’s wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright Olsen), finds out about their “after hours” activities, “that’d be a problem.”

Seal is later shown flying over Guatemala and being fired upon by forces on the ground. At the same time, Agent Schafer is shown taking credit for Seal’s aerial photographs in Washington DC. Seal also flies over El Salvador and is later given a new assignment to deliver intelligence in Panama to and from dictator Manuel Noriega.

In 1980, Seal flies to Colombia, where he is picked up while trying to refuel his airplane and taken to famed drug smuggler Pablo Escobar, who offers to pay Seal “$2,000 per kilo” to help Escobar smuggle his cocaine to Miami, Florida, from a small landing strip in the Colombian jungle. Before Seal can refuse, Escobar has Seal’s plane filled with packages of “product.” Seal tells them that he has a better plan: dropping the drugs from his plane over Louisiana. Escobar later hands Seal a bag of money just as the police invade his house. Seal tries to escape but is arrested. In jail, Seal is bailed out by Agent Schafer, who tells Seal that Seal and his family have to leave Louisiana.

Following the election of Ronald Reagan, Agent Schafer tells Seal that he has a new job for Seal in Mena. Seal moves his family to Arkansas, where he meets with Agent Schafer, who takes him to the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport . Agent Schafer shows Seal a shipment of AK-47s and gives him the intelligence he needs to fly the guns to Central America undetected. Seal hires four other pilots to fly missions for him in which they begin shipping both drugs and guns back and forth from Central America. Agent Schafer informs Seal he now has to smuggle Contras (U.S.-backed rebel forces attempting to overthrow Nicaragua’s left-wing government) to Mena, where they are going to “train.”

Seal’s operation expands as the military takes over part of his airport to train the Contras there. Now a very successful businessman, Seal opens a bank account in Mena and buys his wife a new Cadillac. In 1983, Seal and his pilots nearly get caught flying over the Gulf of Mexico. After learning of Seal’s large bank deposits, FBI agent Craig McCall (E. Roger Mitchell) arrives in Mena, where one bank has given Seal his own vault.

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol forces Seal to land his plane. Seal crash lands in a suburban neighborhood, where he emerges from his plane covered in cocaine but manages to escape. After accepting another job from Escobar, Seal gives his brother-in-law J. B. (Caleb Landry Jones) a passport and a bag of money with orders to disappear. After driving away, J. B.’s car explodes, killing him. Seal is arrested and taken to the Pulaski County Courthouse , where he meets with fictional Attorney General Dana Sibota (Jayma Mays), who lets Seal go after a call from Governor Bill Clinton . Seal is then taken to an airport and flown via private jet to the White House in Washington DC.

In 1984, Seal meets with Oliver North and other officials, who ask Seal to take more photographs, this time for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Seal secretly photographs Escobar and his men loading and unloading his airplane. At home, Seal and his family see his “confidential” photos being shown on television by President Reagan. He is later arrested and sentenced to community service. On December 20, 1985, Seal tapes his confession using a video camera at a motel. On February 19, 1986, Seal makes another video before being assassinated in his car. The film ends with a montage linking Agent Schafer and Seal’s planes to the Iran-Contra Affair. Lucy is seen working at a fast food restaurant with a diamond bracelet on her wrist.

The film diverges wildly from what is known about Barry Seal. The real-life Barry Seal was an overweight former pilot who had served in both the Louisiana National Guard and in the Twentieth Special Forces Group for six years before working for the airline TWA. In the film, actor Tom Cruise plays him as a cocky young pilot not unlike Cruise’s character Maverick in 1986’s Top Gun . Agent Schafer, played by Gleeson, is entirely fictional, as the real Seal began smuggling well before the two characters met in the film. Other events in the film, including Seal landing a plane full of cocaine in a suburban neighborhood, never happened. The real Seal had at least five children, not three, and was married three times. While the extent of his work with the CIA is unknown, Seal was a known drug smuggler who did move his operation to Arkansas. In fact, the film’s original name was Mena , but this was reportedly changed to lessen the emphasis on its connections to Arkansas.

The film opened to more than $16 million its first weekend in the United States and Canada and grossed nearly $135 million worldwide. Most critics praised the film, even as they described it as something of a generic Tom Cruise feature. Director Liman acknowledged that the film did not attempt to be accurate to history and was not meant to be a biopic.

Seal’s exploits have been documented by several writers including Mara Leveritt in her 1999 and 2021 books The Boys on the Tracks and All Quiet at Mena and in Del Hahn’s 2016 book Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal .

For additional information: “ American Made .” Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/ (accessed May 21, 2022).

Bowden, Bill. “’80s Drug, Gun Saga Remains a Sore Spot.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , October 1, 2017, pp. 1A, 8A.

Leveritt, Mara. All Quiet at Mena: A Reporter’s Memoir of Buried Investigations . Little Rock: Bird Call Press, 2021.

———. “Who’s Afraid of Barry Seal?” Arkansas Times , September 28, 2017. Online at https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal (accessed May 21, 2022).

Cody Lynn Berry Benton, Arkansas

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COMMENTS

American Made (2017)
American Made: Directed by Doug Liman. With Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons. The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.
American Made (film)
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The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

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The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

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