If you’ve been following my reviews for any length of time,
you’ll know that I have a rather specific approach to most of the films I
cover. I try and give some breathing room for the acting and production values
of each film, but more times than not, I end up talking about the general vibe
of a film more than anything else; the supposed “message” behind all of it and
end up judging films with that largely in mind. Well, as much as I tend to
focus on the main sentiment of a given production, there are certain ideas and
notions that I find myself repelled by; things like the general attitude of
most ‘chick flicks’ or rather distasteful ideas concerning issues of mental
health tend to set me off and make me a bit myopic in my overall critique, as
if a film’s overall theme overrides anything and everything else it may have to
offer.
I bring this up not to start an effort to avoid such things in the
future, but to once again bring whatever biases I have going into films to the
forefront. And unfortunately, we have another instance of that today with a film
that involves a form of commentary that I will likely never be able to take
seriously. But I’m getting ahead of myself; let’s get started with today’s film
already.
The plot: Commercial pilot Barry (Tom Cruise) is contacted
by CIA agent Monty (Domhnall Gleeson). Monty recruits him to do some dirty jobs
for the organization, starting out with running reconnaissance on guerrilla forces
in South America. However, as Barry gets more involved in the criminal enterprises
in Panama and Nicaragua, he soon finds himself working for both the U.S. and
the drug cartels in the area. As he continues to play both sides against the
middle, he and his family may have to pay the price for his dirty dealings.
The cast is incredibly noteworthy on name recognition, but
that doesn’t translate so well into engaging performances for the most part.
Cruise, once again playing to type as opportunistic and cocky, fills his
surreal boots nicely and brings that bankable charm that was sorely missing
from his last production. Gleeson as our resident spook works in that he
essentially gets the plot started, and some of his interactions in the office
are fun, but otherwise, not that memorable. Same thing with Caleb Landry Jones
as Barry’s brother-in-law in easily his weakest role yet; after his record of
scene-stealing performances, seeing him as the epitome of all things redneck
isn’t nearly as entertaining as it should be.
Jayma Mays turns up for a couple
scenes as an attorney set to bring down Barry, but that description ends up
overselling her relevance to the story. She does fine in the role, but the role
itself isn’t that vital in the scheme of things. Jesse Plemons gets a few
decent moments as a local sheriff, and Sarah Wright might be the one of the
blandest iterations of “domestic partner of the lead criminal” I’ve seen in a
while.
This film’s approach to depicting the dealings of Barry
Seal, from the CIA dirty ops work to the cartel, is done in a very Mitch
Pileggi-esque style. While the film itself is a bit lacking in getting across
the mindsets of the people involved in those dealings, save for Barry whose
motivations are abundantly clear, it does particularly well at getting into the
ins and outs of his operation. The way the film flies through his ‘career
progression’, going from a one-man operation into a larger enterprise, is
eerily reminiscent of Pileggi’s work with Scorsese in the details that are
shown.
However, that’s more to do with style than substance; as much as this
breezes through the finer points of Barry’s smuggling and the tightrope he has
to walk between pleasing the CIA and the cartel, it’s less intricate and more
lucky. That’s likely part of the point, considering how an average Joe
commercial pilot became one of the bigger political influences of the early
80’s, but getting into those details would have helped.
Unlike the visual style, which is incredibly confused and
not helping anything, starting with the camera. Doug Liman appears to be trying
to ape his Bourne cohort Paul Greengrass because Liman and cinematographer
César Charlone have an allergy to keeping the camera still at any point. Relentless shaky-cam abounds
here, which along with being a bit painful to look at for too long also doesn’t
make any real sense for this kind of story. Shaky-cam, for as much as I’ve
railed on it in the past, has a purpose and when used in the right context, it
can be incredibly effective. Said context is usually in relation to some form
of thrills, the unsteady frames emphasising the chaos and tension going on
within. As this story isn’t in any way tense or suspenseful, going more aloof
and tongue-in-cheek, it doesn’t feel like it belongs here, beyond the obvious
explained-by-many-before-me reasons.
But that isn’t even the worst of it; that
comes in when you realise that the film’s production style doesn’t mesh with
handheld camerawork either. Aside from the scenes with Barry, we get many media
collages to bolster the film’s take on American culture and economics; lots of
Reagan, lots of guns, lots of ego. It can get downright slick when coupled with
Cruise’s voiceover, giving insight into how much Barry has latched onto the
American Dream, but that slickness ends up clashing with the
intentionally-wonky photography. It’s rare that I see a film that is this
stylistically confused.
Thankfully, that’s all that this film seems to be confused
about because this film isn’t exactly hiding its main point behind any smokescreens.
Instead, it is rather upfront in how it depicts American ideals, especially in
conjunction with foreign policy. With how insane the U.S. political scene is
nowadays, people tend to forget that what Reagan ended up pulling in the 80’s
affected a lot of what is going on
right now. Hell, a lot of the bigger issues in Western society right now,
namely terrorism, can be traced to U.S. intervention in Third World countries.
This is shown here through the double and triple-dealings of Barry, delivering
for Escobar while arming rebels in Nicaragua and snapping pics of the rebel forces for the CIA. Aiding the enemy
and ally while tricking both of them; it doesn’t get more opportunistic than
that. This is where the American Dream once again gets trotted out to be
whipped into submission, highlighting Barry’s ideals as something that will
likely get him killed if he keeps putting his and his families’ lives under his
want to make in America.
For as scathing as this film when discussing the
Reagan administration and the strings it pulled concerning arming guerrillas
and transporting cocaine, it’s still commentary on something that has become very trodden ground by now. Not that
Reagan himself will ever not be an easy target, but the practice of critiquing
the American Dream is something that just does not interest me in the
slightest. I mean, I was taught about the ideals of the American Dream in high school
and I don’t even live in the U.S.; that’s how ingrained the scepticism towards
that ideal is. We’re not exactly wanting for more stories extolling this same
notion, and with how bland a lot of this comes across, that notion is probably
the most notable part of this whole film. Then again, the film makes it a point
to show trickle-down economics as an actual working subset of capitalism;
critiquing the Reagan era while giving validation to one of its more erroneous
intentions isn’t helping things either.
All in all, it’s a decent crime biopic but not much more
than that. Most of the cast feels wasted, even Cruise who may be a good fit but
doesn’t exactly wow in the process, the production is jarring with certain
visual aspects not at all fitting together, and while the writing raises plenty
of good points concerning the values of Uncle Sam, the story itself isn’t
engaging enough to give it the staying power that it should.
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