Spoiler alert:
It’s 9:30 p.m. Friday and I just returned from watching American Made, the Tom Cruise movie about Baton Rouge drug smuggler Barry Seal.
In brief: more plot holes than a meerkat colony.
If you want to catch the movie for yourself and don’t want to know in advance about the movie’s adherence to or deviation from the facts, stop here because I intend to go into more detail than you normally find in a movie review.
To cut to the chase, if you just want to be entertained, the story line is passable, if implausible. If you want historical facts, stay home and read retired FBI agent Del Hahn’s book Smuggler’s End. Hahn is the one who eventually nailed seal and yours truly edited the manuscript for his book, so I know a little about the story of Barry Seal and Del Hahn knows even more—a lot more.
After watching American Made, I now understand why they start the movie with the graphics “Based on a true story” instead of “True story.” I can state unequivocally that it’s not based on Hahn’s book.
The true parts of this movie are;
- The main character was indeed named Barry Seal.
- He was the youngest pilot in TWA history.
- He did smuggle drugs.
- He did live in Baton Rouge.
- He was, in fact, assassinated at the Baton Rouge Salvation Army headquarters.
The rest of the “true” part is pure garbage. Some examples:
- Seal was fired from TWA, he did not quit as the movie depicts it.
- Seal and his family never moved to Mena, Arkansas, as they did in the movie.
- Seal was never prosecuted by the Arkansas attorney general; he was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in Baton Rouge.
- It was not an Arkansas judge who sentenced Seal to 1,000 hours of community service—in Baton Rouge; it was a Baton Rouge federal judge who sentenced him to spend nights at the Baton Rouge Salvation Army headquarters. Even screenwriters should know an Arkansas state judge would not be able to cross jurisdictional lines to sentence someone to community service in another state.
- Following his fictional arrest by DEA, Arkansas state police, ATF, and sheriff’s deputies as all four agencies conducted improbable simultaneous raids on his Mena airport (in fact, he was never arrested in Arkansas), the Arkansas attorney general was ordered by “Governor Clinton” to let him go, another absurd only-in-Hollywood scenario of a state governor ordering the FBI to stand down.
- Seal never “owned” the Mena Airport and the adjoining several thousand acres. He only parked his planes there (I just don’t know how that was concocted by the script writers).
- Contras were not smuggled into Mena to train at a paramilitary base to return to Nicaragua to fight the Sandinistas. No such paramilitary base ever existed at or around Mena.
- Seal never had a brother-in-law who stole from him and was subsequently killed in a car bombing. It just didn’t happen—except in the movie. I call that filler material thrown in to lengthen the movie.
- He was never drafted to photograph the Medellin cartel unloading drugs for the Sandinista by the CIA, the DEA, The National Security Administration, or any other federal agency; he offered himself up to Vice President George H.W. Bush’s South Florida Drug Task Force in a plea bargain to stay out of jail after his indictment for smuggling barbiturates and that plan to photograph the cartel was the end result.
- That mission was part of the complex Iran-Contra drugs-for-arms deal hatched by Col. Oliver North. The movie barely mentions Iran-Contra and does so as a plot pitched after Seal was killed, which is chronologically skewed.
- He was not prosecuted in Baton Rouge for his part in the Iran-Contra drugs for arms deal; he was prosecuted in Baton Rouge because he resumed smuggling drugs into Louisiana and was caught.
- He was married to Debbie Seal, his third wife, at the time of his death, not “Lucy.”
I suppose 5 percent fact and 95 percent fiction can pass as “based on a true story” to suit the purposes of Hollywood screenwriters but I would much prefer at least a 50-50 balance before I would concede that it was, in fact, “based on a true story.”
Louisiana Voice 
Picky, picky, picky. 🙂
5% is about all we get from the White House, so I guess they meet the new national standard for veracity.
What does the White House have to do with it? And are you referring to Obama telling us that Benghazi was about a film or that the Iran deal was great?
Daniel Hopsicker’s book “Barry and the Boys” was very interesting as well. Never any mention of Seal’s early Intel connections with Operation 40?
That, too, was largely fiction, according to Del Hahn.
I bet Judge Polazola, were he here, wishes it was an Arkansas judge who sentenced Seal to the halfway house instead of himself.
Thanks for the thorough review. You just saved me about $30 (with popcorn, hotdog, and Diet Coke) and about 3 hours of time (counting previews and travel time). 5% fact (all of which I already knew) is about 70% below my bar.
We saw the film Friday night also. I was underwhelmed; it felt like a weak reprise of Top Gun gone south. And we didn’t even know it mostly fantasy! Spouse thought the bales of cash laying around defied credibility. Not to mention opening bank accounts with bazillions in cash and no one blinked. Like the feds. As a movie, the production value was not impressive. As a factual story about a colorful, larger-than-life BR native, zero. A waste of money. And we didn’t even indulge in any delicious, hot, buttery and totally unhealthy popcorn.
I just watched the movie American made and thought it was a copy of another movie called BLOW. It was entertaining in the sense that it looked all fake to me. Most of the movies that are loosely based on factual events have a lot of unreal plots in them. None of the real facts are as entertaining as the imaginary ones dreamed up by Hollywood writers or people who write about it to sell books. I wonder if this guy you claim to have written this book put in all facts or did he leave somethings out, how much is true, and how much is just his recollection on how he saw things? I don’t trust people trying to make a buck off selling books about such cases. The fact that you’re plugging this book tells me his book must be BS as well. Entertainment is just that and movies are there for us to be entertained not take seriously. It’s not hard to discern fact from fantasy especially when its a movie. All events about things that actually happened are stretched for entertainment purposes not to tell the real story.
First of all, please use punctuation and capital letters to start sentences. I found it difficult to follow your line of discussion, so I cleaned up your comment so others could better understand it.
Second, I believe Del Hahn, a retired FBI agent, probably knows as much about Barry Seal as any living authority on the man. As for his “making a buck” off the book, I receive 20 percent of all royalties as editor of the book and I haven’t seen any evidence of his “making a buck,” so I’m not sure where you’re coming from on this. I believe his motives were to clear up the myths surrounding Seal, myths perpetuated by other books by persons not involved in investigating his operations. (and I didn’t claim that Hahn wrote the book, he wrote it—make no mistake about that. I edited it, so I know.) I plugged it because I respect his work as an FBI agent and I personally feel you’re full of BS yourself for such a jaded remark when it’s obvious you know nothing about what you’re saying; you’re just making wild claims and that does nothing for your credibility. Why would my “plugging” the book make it BS? That’s an asinine remark on its face.
The only thing I agree with you is the “based on a true story” disclaimer these movies are using so loosely today. In 1968, I wrote a short book about Bonnie and Clyde, the outlaws who were ambushed by Texas Rangers in Bienville Parish just a few miles from my hometown of Ruston. The movie Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, was accurate down to the last detail of their lives and I was, frankly, surprised. That is the only movie about which I can say that with any certainty.
“Seal never had a brother-in-law who stole from him and was subsequently killed in a car bombing. It just didn’t happen—except in the movie. I call that filler material thrown in to lengthen the movie.”
No, it wasn’t filler material to lengthen the movie. The movie lacked the killing that the cartels did. So, to make the audience believe that it had to be the cartel and cartel only that murdered Mr. Seal, which isn’t much of a stretch except for the fact it allows the gubmint to continue their role of Pontius Pilate, they (Hollyweird and the gubmint) planted the seed in the audiences mind early with a fake narrative.
Nice recap. I actually googled “why did they have Barry Seal in Arkansas in AMERICAN Made” and came across your article. I think in the movie he is actually also at an Arkansas Salvation Army and not Baton Rouge. It’s an Arkansas state trooper who was at the crime scene. I didn’t know there were so many other untruths.
[…] all that leaves is the public, with varying degrees of skepticism and paranoia on either end of the spectrum, writing about this online, incessantly, forever and ever – just like yours […]
You mean like your reading it and responding? That kind of incessant writing about it? Gotcha.
Even if it was only 5% accurate, it was still a great movie and fun to watch. It’s an 8 of 10 on the entertainment scale.
Hollywood is as usual full of CRAP!!!! A lot of detail just made up… Did Seal’s children get any money for this movie?
Not that I’m aware.
Truth is always stranger than fiction, but the public always seems to buy the ticket for the believable.
I remember and experienced first hand just one of the branches of that operation- I was 16 in rural TN, and it scared me so much I ran to California and didn’t look back. Never met Seals, but did meet several very scary others from advance teams.
Seeing this film, it struck me how they sold this guy, who brought f murderers into farmhouses of small town USA, in the name of cash and Dixie Mafia.
They got the feel of the period, but it was black death they let in- not a f party.
There is more truth to this film than anyone will ever admit.The whole Panama thing, the Mena thing, and other actions happened at the same time Nancy was preaching say no to drugs. You’re not gonna find an FBI guy to tell the truth. I’m not a conspiracy freak, but I personally know the very man (Cruz) who pulled the trigger and killed Berry Seal….The FEDS have lied and covered up this time in our history for many years. The US government used Noriega for many years and then jailed him……and all he was doing was being a team player for the US. Perhaps people should start learning to investigate instead of just buying what is told.
Much of the movie was pure fiction. Example: He was not arrested in Mena as the movie depicted. Gov. Bill Clinton did not order the feds to stand down after Seal was arrested in the movie because a governor has no authority over the feds. He did not “own” the Mena airport as the movie depicted.
But you are 100 percent correct in your saying the U.S. used Noriega and then destroyed him when he was of no further use.
He did live in Mens and was arrested by the Poll County Sheriff. He was ordered released by then governor Bill Clinton. The Mena Star ran a story about it before the movie was released. I live Polk County.
BTW, when I started doing my personal investigation into Barry and Mena Airport, Intermountain Regional now, I was told, in no uncertain terms, to “leave it alone”. Apparently there are still some people here who don’t want things dug up.
This movie is horse hockey, plain and simple. It was purposely financed and put out to whitewash the true story, because only then will you see the deep politics that underlies the JFK assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra and 9/11. Only then will you see these events as one continuous operation with the same underlying characters. If you want to know the true history and fascinating story of Barry Seal find a copy of “Barry & The Boys” by Daniel Hopsicker. He also has many YouTube videos on the subject. And read the works of author/investigator Peter Dale Scott. But at all cost please avoid this lying propaganda.
I’m not completely sold on Hopsicker, either. A lot of what he wrote has been disproved. But I agree that the movie is a lot of hooey.