American Made
Universal Pictures | Release Date: September 29, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 50 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
18
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 28, 2017
American Made is a smart, nervy film, a very modern entertainment made with energy, style and a fine sense of humor that keeps us amused until gradually, almost imperceptibly, the laughter starts to stick in our throats. Read full review
90
Village VoiceBilge EbiriSep 26, 2017
American Made is his first effort in a long while that feels like an honest-to-god Tom Cruise movie; suddenly, his smile means something again. But there’s one huge, beautiful catch: Doug Liman’s electric film is clear-eyed about the cynicism and corruption beneath its hero’s anxious grin. It voraciously breaks down both the star and the country he has symbolized for so much of his career. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 28, 2017
Doug Liman’s American Made is a fast-paced, breezy and mostly upbeat action-comedy-thriller that turns the likes of Escobar and Noriega into laugh-producing supporting players — and somehow manages to pull off that trick without offensively minimizing the evil ways of those legendarily ruthless drug kingpins. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonSep 28, 2017
Liman and Cruise previously worked together on the brilliant but overlooked science-fiction flick “Edge of Tomorrow.” Their latest collaboration, which boasts one of Cruise’s best and most charismatic performances, deserves to be a hit. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 26, 2017
The movie spins like a top for two hours. With his pearly shark’s grin, always-underestimated comic timing, and macho daredevil streak, Cruise rips into the role and summons a side of himself that he rarely lets his guard down enough to reveal. Read full review
80
EmpireAlex GodfreyAug 23, 2017
Cruise is as compelling as ever with charm to spare, and this is a ceaselessly entertaining, sometimes tense romp. Although it doesn’t dig much below the surface. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt MaytumAug 23, 2017
Cruise is on top form in a based-on-fact thriller that overcomes its familiar trappings with audacious details and flat-out pacing. Read full review
75
The Film StageDan MeccaOct 1, 2017
Many laughs are earned in observing how much money Seal actually made and how much the government played him for a fool. And like many cautionary tales, some of the comedy hurts. Liman and Cruise know this, and the result is something well-crafted, if woefully familiar. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 29, 2017
The screenplay is quirky enough to resemble an unfinished Coen Brothers narrative but mainstream enough to appeal to a broad audience. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartSep 29, 2017
Entertaining particulars aside, this trope is pretty well-worn — the game everyman who finds making illegal money easy and fun, until it isn’t. Read full review
75
IGNJim VejvodaSep 28, 2017
Featuring one of Tom Cruise's best performances in recent years, American Made is a darkly funny, dizzying crime film that nevertheless ultimately feels inconsequential and overly familiar. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonSep 28, 2017
Seal, though, makes for a poor fall guy. Liman had it right in that first scene: The turbulence in Seal’s life was of his own making. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 28, 2017
American Made points out an unfortunate time in our history when government shenanigans ran amok internationally and people did bad things in the name of greed and power. But hoo-boy, does Tom Cruise have fun with it. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerSep 28, 2017
American Made has such style and energy that its hasty patchwork of a narrative becomes a kind of charm unto itself, even when it means losing track of talented actors. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 27, 2017
American Made really does deserve to be on a double-bill with “Top Gun,” and I’m betting Cruise knows it. The first film embodies the glorious shallowness of the Reagan Era. The second wallows in that shallowness while hinting at everything it cost. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 27, 2017
The nuts-and-bolts of the work — the precision flying, the money laundering and cash impact on a small town that looks the other way — make other movies and TV shows on the subject seem humorless and tame. Read full review
75
IndieWireMike McCahillAug 17, 2017
The film has just about enough going on around its anti-hero to sustain the interest and land its punchline, and there are signs Liman (a Cruise veteran since “Edge of Tomorrow”) is solving the enduring problem of making a Cruise film that’s not wholly about its leading man. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineTim GriersonSep 28, 2017
Despite its shortcomings, American Made can be deceptively nuanced, as Liman and Cruise put care into their depiction of a natural born charmer who may eventually find his luck has run out. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaSep 29, 2017
If you’re the type of viewer who thought "Wolf of Wall Street’s" failing was that it looked too cool, American Made is for you. It’s the grubbiest, greasiest vision of bad boys gettin’ away with it in recent memory. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 28, 2017
The film is a little too polished and slick to really provide the slap in the face of the U.S. government it intends to deliver. But as a means for Cruise to shake off the dust of movies like “The Mummy” for something more substantive, it more than succeeds. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 25, 2017
Above all, there is Tom Cruise, whose career was in the ascendant, with “Risky Business” (1983) and “Legend” (1985), in the frantic years covered by the second half of American Made. Because he has changed so little in the interim, and mounted so uncanny a resistance to the onslaught of time, we feel, with a jolt, that we are gazing up at a star as he both was and still is. Astronomers may flee the cinema in confusion. Read full review
70
Screen DailySarah WardAug 17, 2017
It’s a breezy trip for the star, making ample use of his usual charisma, urgency, grin and gift of the gab, though the late ’70s/early ’80s-set film doesn’t completely hit the mark. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeAug 17, 2017
A sweat-slicked, exhausting but glibly entertaining escapade on its own terms, American Made is more interesting as a showcase for the dateless elasticity of Cruise’s star power. It feels, for better or worse, like a film he could have made at almost any point in the last 30 years. Read full review
67
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerSep 28, 2017
American Made speaks in shorthand, in its visual and narrative language alike, and it’s less the ribald ripped-from-the-headlines commentary it aspires to be than a cynically breezy take on an ugly, unduly buried chapter of American history. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 28, 2017
American Made wants it both ways, with comedy eroding its drama and vice versa. Read full review
67
The PlaylistWill AshtonSep 28, 2017
There’s no shortage of “Goodfellas” wannabes out there, but American Made is a serviceably entertaining one with consistent action and hearty chuckles along the way. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 27, 2017
For anyone of a certain age, the ending will come as no surprise, but, as always, half the fun is getting there, and cynical though it may be, American Made is undeniably a whole lot of action-oriented fun. Read full review
63
ObserverRex ReedOct 3, 2017
Hack director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) is lucky to engage Cruise’s box-office appeal for a tale that otherwise would never have seen the light of day. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Simon HouptSep 28, 2017
There's an aspirational pleasure in seeing Cruise, now in his mid-50s, jump through these hoops. He knows we prefer him when he shades his easy charm with self-doubt, and Barry has a pleasingly sweaty desperation. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 28, 2017
It's all true – but so what? American Made may be fact-based but that doesn't stop it from feeling monumentally generic, like you've seen it all before (Blow, Sicario, The Infiltrator, War Dogs, TV's Narcos ... the list goes on). Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 28, 2017
It’s fairly entertaining even when it doesn’t quite work, directed for maximum pace by Cruise’s “Edge of Tomorrow” cohort, director Doug Liman. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 28, 2017
Liman knows how to keep the convoluted, almost impossibly far-fetched story on the rails, without losing our attention, and he adds many details that will bring a smile. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredRobert Yaniz Jr.Oct 1, 2017
Overall, this isn’t a bad movie, just one that feels at odds with itself. Despite its flaws though, American Made is a fun enough ride and features yet another winsome Cruise performance. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonSep 28, 2017
American Made is one of the many children of “Goodfellas,” a true-crime story turned first-person narrative told by a charismatic ne’er-do-well surrounded by dubious characters and tantalizing subplots. None of these offspring, including American Made, have matched the chilling grandeur of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece, with its multifaceted characters and visual fluidity. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 28, 2017
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. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneySep 27, 2017
It isn’t the charged biopic that a story as fascinating as Seal’s deserves, but it has enough rambunctious delights to get by. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 24, 2017
The beamingly ingenuous Cruise, whose character is not burdened with any doubts or an inner life, somehow sells it to you. Read full review
60
CineVueMartyn ConterioAug 24, 2017
Cruise rides the Breaking Bad and Narcos train, only not as well as either. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 24, 2017
The film is much too anxious – desperately so – for us to feel that Barry is a fundamentally decent guy. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonAnna SmithAug 23, 2017
Liman mines the story for familiar but fun comedy...though it never reaches the comedic heights of rise-and-fall classics such as Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinAug 17, 2017
This is yet another hyper-competent, boyishly devil-may-care character that offers Cruise, famous for his derring-do on set, a chance to do his own stunts and fly a plane; it’s not a role all that far out of the ageing megastar’s wheelhouse. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 29, 2017
Cruise gives his energetic all to the role, but he, too, doesn’t seem to be quite aware that Seal was morally compromised far beyond the shallow confines of this film. Read full review
55
TheWrapJason SolomonsAug 17, 2017
Liman’s tone, channelled through Cruise gently straining to deconstruct his own iconography, achieves neither real comedy nor actual tension. The movie feels lightweight, even while pointing fingers at the American government’s meddling foreign policy and lies. Read full review
50
SlateSam AdamsSep 28, 2017
Barry is the closest thing Tom Cruise has played to a regular Joe in more than a decade, and the part isn’t a snug fit. Read full review
50
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 28, 2017
It’s not that American Made doesn’t have anything to say; it’s just that whatever it has to say has been said better somewhere else. It’s not bad; it’s not good, either. It’s just shallow. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 28, 2017
Cruise plays Barry as an aw-shucks raconteur, and the routine is amusing at first. But midway through American Made, even Cruise devotees might decide enough is enough. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsSep 28, 2017
American Made may be superficially a condemnation of the hypocritical American impulse to take drug suppliers' money with one hand and chastise users with the other. But it's mostly a sensational, sub-"Wolf of Wall Street"-style true crime story that attempts to seduce you, then abandon you. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonSep 28, 2017
Doug Liman may effectively maintain a madcap energy through to the end, but unlike Adam McKay or Martin Scorsese, he isn't all that interested in explicating the complex inner workings of vast criminal enterprises. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenSep 27, 2017
Cruise and company wanted to make American Made a fun and often funny ride, but there’s something oddly joyless about the whole enterprise. Its overweening cynicism leaves a curdled aftertaste. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 27, 2017
Even while we’re watching it, a funny feeling sets in. Lots of things happen in American Made, but it’s as if the frenetic pace is to keep us from thinking about what we’re watching. Read full review
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