In 2017s American Made, Tom Cruise proved that he can be at his best when playing the exact opposite of Top Guns franchise hero Maverick. In 2017s American Made, Tom Cruise plays real-life smuggler Barry Seal, a larger-than-life figure who ran drugs for the CIA during Iran-Contra. While Barry Seal made a lot of money during his escapades, American Made doesnt portray the pilot as a charismatic antihero. The fact that the drug money was used to fund anti-Communist death squads in South America is never far from the audiences mind, making Cruises character an amoral figure.
