American Made Ending Explained - What Happened to Barry Seal?
The Big Picture
- American Made is a true story about Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who becomes involved with government agencies and drug cartels in the '70s and '80s.
- Tom Cruise delivers a wonderful performance in a movie that initially flew under the radar.
- The film tackles complex themes such as the Iran-Contra affair and the Sandanista government coup in Venezuela.
The 2017 Tom Cruise film American Made is an unlikely true story, to say the least. Cruise plays Barry Seal, a real-life commercial pilot who ends up being recruited by multiple government agencies to infiltrate the South American drug cartels in the late '70s into the early '80s. And his on-again, off-again Southern drawl aside, it's a wonderful performance from the Mission: Impossible star in a movie that flew under the radar upon its initial release. And because the events depicted in American Made are taken directly from a true story, it makes it an even more fascinating story of how a commercial airline pilot ended up dealing with the likes of Pablo Escobar and the dangerous Medellín drug cartel in Colombia. Let's break down an ending that gets a little convoluted as just about every United States agency is involved at some point along with tie-ins to some political events unfolding at the same time including the Iran-Contra affair and the Sandanista government coup in Venezuela.
American Made
RThe 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 Tom Cruise , Domhnall Gleeson , Sarah Wright , Caleb Landry Jones , Jesse Plemons Runtime 115 minutes Main Genre ActionWhat Is 'American Made About'?
Directed by Doug Liman, American Made is the true story of Barry Seal who was a commercial pilot for TWA, a now-defunct airline, back in the late 70s when he was busted for smuggling illegal contraband into the United States aboard the jets he was flying. He is then given a choice to face jail time or become an informant for the CIA and Agent Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). He chooses the latter and within just a few months finds himself as a contract CIA employee running guns for the US government and both trafficking and providing intelligence for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on the boon of illegal drugs flowing out of South America. He does this while trying to maintain a normal family life with his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) and a couple of kids living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's a harrowing tale of a man who risks his own life and his family to avoid the wrath of the government and the FBI. Given Cruise's fascination with flying in both the Top Gun movies and the Mission Impossible franchise, it turned out to be a perfect fit for the amateur aviator and ultimate thrill seeker.
How Long Had Barry Seal Worked For the CIA in 'American Made'?
CloseOnce Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, American involvement in Central and South America grew exponentially as Reagan had promised to take a more hard-line approach to calamitous regimes that were popping up throughout the more unstable countries of the region. Seal began smuggling small amounts of marijuana into the country dating back to 1976. By 1978, he graduated to importing large amounts of cocaine from countries like Ecuador and Honduras.
By the early '80s, Barry Seal was running large amounts of drugs for the infamous Medellín cartel and the most notorious drug kingpin of the era, Pablo Escobar, from Colombia into the United States via the Gulf of Mexico. The DEA became aware of Seal's activity in 1981 and after several years of legal wrangling and indictments, Seal officially started contract work for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1983 until his death in February 1986 at just 46 years of age.
What Leads to Barry Seal's Demise in 'American Made'?
The final scenes in American Made are dedicated to a large cocaine haul that involved Pablo Escobar and several high-ranking members of his cartel. On what turns out to be Barry Seal's final run for the Medellín cartel, he agrees with his handler at the DEA, James Rangel (Benito Martinez) to install a hidden camera within the cargo of the fuselage of his plane. This camera captures Seal along with several Medellín lieutenants along with members of the controversial Venezuelan Sandanista government loading palettes of drugs into the plane. The pictures are supposed to be classified, but in the days that follow, they are aired when President Reagan goes on the air to expose what is happening in South America and Barry can be seen prominently in the photos. This is the beginning of the end for Barry as Escobar will surely be targeting him for betraying him which means certain death. He decides to stay away from his family so they won't be in danger when the retaliation comes.
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Once Escobar knows that Barry has betrayed him and is working for the government, Barry is obviously concerned for his own well-being as Escobar has killed more important men than him for less. He goes into hiding moving from motel to motel on a daily basis to elude what he assumes are Medellín cartel members looking to assassinate him. He makes a series of video journal entries detailing some of his exploits as a sort of memoir. During this time, he is also serving a probation period of 6 months in Arkansas for being found in possession of a warehouse full of drugs and guns. So he spends half of the day in a halfway house and the other half hiding from Escobar's hitmen. Eventually, Barry's luck runs out, and while sitting outside the Arkansas halfway house one afternoon, two Medellín cartel assassins approach him as he is seated in his car and shoot him dead.
'American Made's Satirical CIA Ending and Final Shot Explained
After Barry's cover is blown when Reagan goes on TV and shows the photos of him engaged with the Medellín cartel and Sandanista regime, DEA agents celebrate with a toast of champagne while CIA Agent Monty Schafer frantically walks through the office telling his employees to get rid of anything and everything that has Barry Seal's name on it. They need to erase Barry from ever being involved with any CIA activity. In a tongue-in-cheek final line, Shafer has an epiphany and decides that they will say that the Iranians sold arm the Contras to explain away their involvement with Barry who had also been running guns down to the Contras who were fighting the oppressive and illegitimate Sandinista government in Venezuela. As he posits this idea to a colleague there is a caption below him that reads, "Schafer got a promotion."
This was what started the infamous Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s that brought down Colonel Oliver North. There is also a sequence that describes how, even after Barry's assassination, the CIA continued to use his plane to run guns to the Contras in Venezuela until it was shot down over Nicaragua. The last scene of American Made shows Lucy back behind the counter of a fast food restaurant working the cash register showing that he has come full circle on her wild ride with Barry. Doug Liman emphasizes the final shot of the nice bracelet on her wrist as she extends her arm to give a customer their order. One final ode to the wild ride that was the life of Barry Seal.
American Made is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.
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