From Tom Cruise and the always erratic but interesting director Doug Lyman is one of those based on a true story films. Cruise isn't playing his tiresome Ethan Hunter character this time. Instead he is a gun and drug smuggler named Barry Seal who appears to be working for the CIA. He's running guns for the Contras in Nicaragua as part of a plot to destabilize the government under the Reagan Administration.
At the same time Barry Seal was also smuggling drugs for the Medellín Cartel into the United States. This is almost a classic comedy farce as Seal has to juggle all these very dangerous South American bad guys while making boat loads of money. But the reality is his activities affect a number of people's lives.
Tom Cruise was always good at comedy and his character of a too smart for his own good criminal who finally runs out of cleverness is fun to watch. The film has a good supporting cast with Domhnall Gleeson as his very sleazy CIA contact, Sarah Wright as his wife, smart enough to see what's going on but enjoying the money that Barry Seal is bringing in. Also in an amusing role is Caleb Jones as the white trash brother in law whose stupidity starts to bring this whole house of cards down.
The director Doug Lyman was honest enough to admit that the film was only "based on" incidents in Barry Seals life but you just have to spend a little time on the internet to see that a lot of the film wasn't that far from the actual truth. A well made and very good film from Tom Cruise who can rise to occasion when he wants to instead of just playing it safe,
The film was written by Gary Spinelli, the running time is 115 minutes
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