History Film / AmericanMade

* DrugsAreBad: The story takes place during the height of the Reagan-era Drugs Are Bad campaign.

[[caption-width-right:350:''"My name is Barry Seal. Some of this shit really happened. It really did."'']]
->''"And why am I in the room? Because I’m the gringo who always delivers."''

** The scene where Seal's step-brother is assassinated by a car bomb is fictional.

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler:After it's revealed to the whole world that Barry photographed basically the entire leadership of the Medellin Cartel loading cocaine onto a plane, he's a dead man walking. That said, he pretty much ''knows'' this, and is making sure his family is financially secure and his story is recorded, because he knows it's just a matter of time before he's found and killed.]]

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: While the real Barry Seal [[https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/seal_sealpilot1.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1500&h=2079 in his youth was a conventionally good looking man]], making someone like Tom Cruise a logical choice to play him, in real life at the time when the later events depicted the movie took place, he actually [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Seal#/media/File:Barry_Seal.JPG was not as good looking, overweight with the start of a noticeably receding hairline]].For whatever reason, Tom Cruise didn't wear a fat suit or give the illusion of having less hair while playing Barry in the later parts of the movie, like he did when he appeared in {{Film/Tropic Thunder}}.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The film changes or adds in numerous aspects of the real Barry Seal's life

* AssholeVictim: JB thanks Barry for getting him out of jail and giving him the means to escape the country ''and'' a sack full of cash, by immediately blackmailing him for ''more money'' and crudely insulting Barry's wife (his own sister). [[spoiler: So we're not that broken up when his car explodes a few seconds later, courtesy of the Medellin Cartel.]]

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The film is based on a conspiracy theory that Seal worked for the [=CIA=] while smuggling drugs for TheCartel, and indeed that the Agency even pushed him into doing this. While Seal claimed to have done errands for the [=CIA=] and other government offices in the 1950s- such as running guns into Cuba- he never said that his later drug operations had anything to do with them and in fact his drug smuggling began about 5 years earlier than the film made out, nor did he ever claim they hired him to do photography work. The character of Schafer is totally fictional and while it is ''possible'' that Seal worked for them and they covered it up (which is what the film runs with), it's even more likely that they had nothing to do with him as they had plenty of resources of their own without having to rely on a criminal mercenary. If he WAS recruited, it didn't play out in the way the film shows, as Seal was specifically fired for smuggling plastic explosives; he did not quit because the Agency made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

* LoveableRogue: Barry is largely portrayed this way being a fun and charming family man who is generous and loved by his community -- who makes his profit smuggling cocaine into the USA.

--> '''Barry:''' I tend to leap before I look. ... Maybe I should have asked a few more questions.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Played with. Although Barry gets increasingly deeply involved in the drug and weapons trade with the cartel, his morality never changes much -- he was always willing to smuggle illegal cargo (near the beginning of the movie he is caught smuggling cigars), he just didn't have a large-scale opportunity before.
* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler: After it's revealed to the whole world Barry photographed basically the entire leadership of the Medellin Cartel loading cocaine onto a plane, he's a dead man walking. That said, he pretty much ''knows'' this, and is making sure his family is financially secure and his story is recorded, because he knows it's just a matter of time before he's found and killed.]]

* SmallNameBigEgo: While his skills as a pilot are beyond dispute, Barry doesn't seem to understand that he's really just an expendable pawn in the schemes and agendas of organization with far, far more resources and fewer morals than him. Most egregious is when he brags to the camera about "building" the Medellin Cartel. He didn't. The Cartel was already there, and contracted him to work for them, because he was a profitable convenience of skills and geography. Barry was also one of ''many'' crooked American pilots working for them. He just happened to ''also'' be working for the CIA at the same time.

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: No one really seems fazed when Lucy's mooching, stealing white trash brother JB gets blown up in his car.

* SmallNameBigEgo: While his skills as a pilot are beyond dispute, Barry doesn't seem to understand that he's really just an expendable pawn in the schemes and agendas of organization with far, far more resources and fewer morals than him. Most egregious is when he brags to the camera about "building" the Medellin Cartel. He didn't. The Cartel was already there, and contracted him to work for them, because he was a profitable convenience of skills and geography.
** Barry was also one of ''many'' crooked American pilots working for them. He just happened to ''also'' be working for the CIA at the same time.
* TheSpook: Fittingly, the CIA officer who recruits and handles Barry does not to reveal anything about himself. Including his name, of course.

* WarForFunAndProfit: Barry is pleased when he hears the news that communists are invading Colombia, since this means more business for him. The Contras are also portrayed this way, being more concerned with making money out of drug traffic than actually toppling the Sandinista government.

* WrongGenreSavvy: As reviews have noted, a key aspect of the film is that Barry believes he's the typical Tom Cruise character of a cool guy handling things well and having a grand adventure while outwitting others. Barry is completely unaware that he's nothing more than a cog in the entire CIA-drug cartel wheel and that if it goes bad (which it does), he'll be the fall guy. Even after that, he still thinks he can play both sides to get a deal and go free, not grasping how he's completely in over his head which ends up costing his life.

* TheColdWar: The United States funds the Contras and delivers guns to them in order to topple the socialist government that had toppled the dictator Anastasio Somoza.

** There is no evidence Seal worked for the CIA, and Seal himself denied this allegation. The character of Monty Schafer is fictional.