CHICAGO – When two brothers confront the sins of each other and it expands into a psychology of an entire race, it’s at a stage play found in Chicago’s Invictus Theatre Company production of “Topdog/Underdog,” now at their new home at the Windy City Playhouse through March 31st, 2024. Click TD/UD for tickets/info.
Film Review: Tom Cruise in ‘American Made’ Never Gets Off the Ground
CHICAGO – Tom Cruise was once a Top Gun, but his newest film “American Made” never really takes off. It wants to be a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction kind of satire where commercial airline pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) winds up getting involved in the Iran Contra Affair and the Medellín drug cartel, but it never creates an enthralling place or story.
Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
The biggest problem is repetition. Cruise-as-Barry takes off, does reconnaissance, picks up cargo, and evades authorities. Fly, drop, repeat. And more blame starts with Tom Cruise. Sporting a bad wig, smiling through that perpetual shit eating grin and a thoroughly unconvincing Louisiana accent, Cruise is distracting in the lead role. For a man who once inhabited the role of Maverick in “Top Gun,” Cruise looks surprisingly uncomfortable at times in a cockpit.
Barry Seal starts off as a pilot for TWA who is frankly a little bored by shuttling passengers around the country. In his first scene, he’s shown simulating turbulence purely for the shits and giggles of jolting a sleeping co-pilot awake. He attracts the attention of a CIA operative nicknamed Schaefer (Domhnall Gleeson), who recruits the pilot to take reconnaissance photos of communist guerillas in Central America.
Off the Ground: Tom Cruise as Barry Seal in ‘American Made’
Photo credit: Universal Pictures