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John Crudele

‘american made’ sheds light on shady arkansas airfield deals.

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There’s only one mention of Bill Clinton in Tom Cruise’s new movie, “American Made,” which is about a Washington-sponsored operation in the early 1980s to send guns to rebel forces in Nicaragua from an airfield in Mena, Ark.

That operation didn’t go quite as planned for a number of reasons, including the fact that Cruise’s character, the real-life and long-dead Barry Seal , was enlisted by the Medellín drug cartel to bring cocaine to the US.

Rather than fly his planes empty on the return trip — and probably get killed for refusing the cartel’s request — Seal agreed. And the former TWA pilot made a lot of money in the process, leading to a one-man economic boom for Clinton’s Arkansas.

I happen to know a fair bit about the Mena operation because I was investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s financial dealings in the late 1990s, and that mysterious airfield repeatedly came up.

And as a result, I acquired copies of a whole lot of Seal’s documents, including phone records, legal documents and notes scribbled on napkins and bits of hotel stationery.

Toward the end of the movie, Seal (Cruise) has been picked up by Arkansas investigators and is about to be charged when then-State Attorney General Joe Svoboda is interrupted by a phone call.

Gov. Clinton is on the line.

“He says it’s urgent,” the AG’s receptionist says. Svoboda picks up the phone and says: “What you need, Bill?”

Seal has already taunted the investigators by saying that he was going to walk out a free man. Then, Svoboda says, “He’s free to go.”

The implication, although not stated in the movie, is that Seal was released at the request of someone in Washington — probably someone in the Reagan White House, whose CIA was deeply involved in the gun-running operation that later became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

The Hollywood Reporter, which says the film was based on “one conspiracy theory,” recently wrote that Bill was supposed to get more of a mention in the movie .

“Those hoping for some Clinton dirt will ultimately be disappointed. The filmmakers decided to cut a scene showing a young Clinton getting a lap dance at an Arkansas strip club,” said the paper.

But let me tell you that the Mena operation isn’t some “conspiracy theory.” The drug operation was as real as it gets and those notes, interviews and other records I mentioned prove it.

And even though it was being run out of Arkansas, from everything I’ve seen and heard, it wasn’t anything that then-Gov. Clinton controlled or even took an active part in. This was way over his young head.

But that doesn’t mean Clinton wasn’t aware of what was going on.

Investigators at the time found people who swore they saw Bill at Mena’s airport at various times. But nobody said they saw him with either Seal or Fred Hampton, who ran a company called Rich Mountain Aviation at that airport.

“I heard that [Clinton was at Mena airport] from so many people who had seen him there. At least five or six people,” said a professional investigator who looked into the case. One even recorded the wing number of the plane Clinton flew in on.

And it’s clear that state investigators had their eye on the airport. So, unless Bill was completely blind as to what was going on, he undoubtedly knew about Mena.

One document I have contains a sworn interview with a woman named Mary Kathryn Corrigan who worked as a secretary for Hampton at Mena. “Did you ever see anything suspicious while working at Rich Mountain Aviation?” she was asked by police in September 1985.

“I think probably what seemed suspicious to me was to have so many people coming in at night and paying cash and leaving the cash in a drawer and working at all hours of the night to get planes out for people,” she said.

That interview took place in Mena and was conducted by Arkansas State Police Special Agent William Duncan and was attended by Russell Welch, also of the state police.

In another document from 1985, Seal himself testified about some of what he did. It’s referred to as a “synopsis” of Seal’s transcripts and, citing his real name, is titled, “Testimony of Adler Berriman Seal.” The case was the US vs. Saunders et al. in Miami federal court.

“Mr. Seal testifies the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) gave him an undisclosed amount of money for expenses on renting a Learjet…” Also, Mr. Seal, who also went by the name Bill Elders as well as variations of his real name, “testifies he made 6 or 7 hundred thousand dollars in trafficking drugs after he went to work for the DEA [from March 1984 to March 1985]. Mr. Seal testifies the DEA knew about the money and let him keep most of it.”

Now I’ll give you a conspiracy theory to chew on.

After Seal pleaded guilty in February 1986, he was given an extremely light sentence of 100 hours of community service — thanks to the intervention of the CIA and others — and ordered to live at the Salvation Army in Baton Rouge, La.

Was there a conspiracy to get him killed because someone in Washington was afraid he’d spill the beans? The movie doesn’t even hint.

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American Made

The 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.
Barry Seal was just an ordinary pilot who worked for TWA before he was recruited by the CIA in 1978. His work in South America eventually caught the eye of the Medellín Cartel, associated with Pablo Escobar, who needed a man with his skill set. Barry became a drug trafficker, gun smuggler and money launderer. Soon acquiring the title, 'The gringo that always delivers'. — Viir khubchandani
In 1978, the skilled and ambitious TWA pilot Barry Seal smuggles Cuban cigars to increase his income. Out of the blue, he is contacted by the CIA agent Monty Schafer, who asks him to work for the CIA photographing facilities over Central America using a state-of-art small plane. Soon Barry contacts General Noriega as a courier for the CIA and is contacted by the Medellin Cartel that wants him to transport drugs to the USA. Then Schafer asks Barry to carry weapons for the Contras in Nicaragua. Barry invites pilots that are his friends and plots routes to smuggle drugs for the cartel. The CIA closes eyes to the scheme and Barry becomes richer and richer. He uses the Arkansas town Mena to launder his money. But the DEA and the FBI are tracking him down. When the CIA shuts down the scheme, Barry is left alone and arrested by the agencies. What will happen to his family and him? — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1978. Barry Seal, an airline pilot, is recruited by the CIA to fly special transport missions in Central America. Initially it is a matter of information-for-supplies but ultimately he ends up being a drug transporter for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel and supplying anti-Communist groups, including the Nicaraguan Contras, with weapons. — grantss
Knowing that he smuggles Cuban cigars into the United States as a profitable side hustle, CIA agent, Monty Schafer, recruits the daredevil TWA pilot, Barry Seal, to take aerial photographs of Sandinista bases in 1978. Before long, with Barry acting as a liaison, delivering money to General Manuel Noriega in exchange for information, Pablo Escobar 's infamous Medellín Cartel enters the picture, with its co-founders, Jorge Ochoa and Carlos Lehder, wanting to have a piece of the action. Now, Seal finds himself leading a peril-laden, cocaine-dusted triple life, and Schafer, as greedy as ever, keeps assigning increasingly dangerous tasks to his thrill-seeking go-getter, including flying guns to the Nicaraguan Contras, leading to the late 1980s Iran/Contra scandal, during the second term of the Ronald Reagan Administration. — Nick Riganas
Set in the year 1978, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works as a pilot for Trans World Airlines. He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. While at a bar one night, Barry is found by a man saying his name is Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). He is familiar with Barry's work as a pilot, but Schafer offers him a chance to make better money by taking on reconnaissance missions for the CIA in a smaller plane with cameras just south of the border. Schafer convinces Barry that he would be working for the good guys, but it would have to be kept completely secret, even from his own family. He then lets Barry take the plane out for a ride. As he begins his new job, Barry starts making tapes documenting his travels and exploits. He flies over countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Schafer is so impressed with the photos that Barry brings back to him, that he assigns Barry a new task of being a bag man between the CIA and General Manuel Noriega (Alberto Ospino) in Panama. On his mission, Barry meets the Medellin Cartel - Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda), Carlos Lehder (Fredy Yate Escobar), and Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejia). They want to get their drugs into the United States, but the runway for the planes is too risky for most pilots. Barry takes his plane for a ride and almost crashes into the trees but manages to pull up and continue his flight with ease and get back to the U.S. without getting in trouble. Barry now has the trust of the cartel. However, the DEA raid one of their compounds, and Barry is arrested. Schafer finds him in his cell and tells him that his house will get raided, and Lucy will most likely be brought in for questioning and be kept overnight. When Barry gets out, he goes home and urges Lucy and the kids to pack up their things so they can move. Despite Lucy's questioning, Barry insists he cannot tell her a thing, leading her to lose trust in him. The Seals move to Mena, AR. Barry is then given the assignment to move guns for the Contras, even being allowed to own his own airport and planes for the job. His first flight to meet with the Contras ends with them robbing his stuff instead of taking his guns. Barry calls Schafer to let him know that the Contras aren't interested in the guns. On his second trip, he meets with a cartel leader to negotiate sending the guns to the cartel instead. Barry brings guns to the cartel and ships their drugs to the U.S. and the Contras while trying his hardest to avoid being detected by the law. Barry gets four other men to help him on his trips when he realizes the workload is too much for one guy to pull off. They fly separate planes on their missions. Schafer then asks Barry to bring back some of the Contras to the U.S. for the CIA's newly-established training base. Upon arrival, however, some of the men run away. As Barry's business grows, he starts to contribute to the community and provide even more for his family while also shamelessly indulging in his wealth and setting up fronts to hide all the money. Eventually, the Seals are visited by Lucy's freeloading brother JB (Caleb Landry Jones), whom Barry is not fond of. When Lucy tells JB to get a job, Barry sets him up working at the airport. JB ends up taking some money that Barry was hiding in the hangar, using it to buy himself a new car and to pick up an underage girl. The DEA starts to go after the pilots. On one mission, Barry crash-lands and loses a significant portion of the drugs. Meanwhile, the cartel runs into trouble when Escobar declares war on the government, and the cartel gets kicked out of Colombia. Barry must meet with them to sort out the issues. At the same time, JB gets arrested by the sheriff after he is caught carrying a suitcase full of money. After bailing JB out, Barry drives him to a separate car so that he can leave and never return. JB curses Barry and drives away, only to be blown up by a car bomb. Barry gets rid of the car by dumping it in the woods. Barry and Schafer meet to discuss what's been going on. Schafer says the Contras left since they just weren't fighting. The CIA then starts to get rid of anything involving Barry. Barry attempts to move the stash of products out of the airport, but he is found by FBI, DEA, and other law enforcement agents, and he is arrested. Barry meets with a prosecutor, Dana Sibota (Jayma Mays), who is hellbent on getting Barry locked up. As he waits outside while she speaks to a lawyer on the phone, Barry tries to bribe the agents with caddies while also insisting he will walk away scot-free. Sibota comes out and confirms that Barry is free to go. Barry is given a task under Ronald Reagan's administration to gather dirt on the Sandinistas, all of whom are believed to be drug traffickers. They set up cameras in a plane for Barry to get photos as proof. Barry returns to meet with Ochoa and the rest of the Medellin Cartel. As he still has their trust, Barry engages in business with them, moving products into the plane where the photos are taken. The White House later releases the photos as propaganda, and Barry is seen in the photos. He is told that they were not supposed to be released to the public until after the cartel members were caught. The DEA go through Barry's house looking for evidence. Lucy takes the kids to Baton Rouge. Barry is convicted and is sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service. He moves from hotel to hotel each night. On one such night, he is approached in his car by hit-men sent by Escobar, and he is subsequently murdered. The final text states that "Schafer" got promoted after suggesting they get the Iranians to arm the Contras. One of Barry's guys went on to become a pastor in Alabama after he was set free. The rest of the pilots weren't seen after that. The CIA continued to use Barry's plane to arm the Contras until one of the planes was shot down over Nicaragua. The ensuing scandal was known as the Iran-Contra Affair. Lucy returned to Louisiana with the kids. The last thing we see is her working as a cashier at a coffee shop, still wearing a bracelet that Barry gave her.

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Where was American Made filmed?

City locations.

Atlanta, New Orleans, Madison (USA), Medellin, Caquetá (Colombia)

Location Types

House, Film Studio, Museum

Location Styles

Americana, Manufacturing, Plane Style, Rustic

About American Made

American Made is an action comedy every Tom Cruise fan and, generally, anyone who appreciates good storytelling should watch. Released in 2017, Doug Liman, who also directed Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, helmed the film.

Cruise shares the screen with Sarah Wright, Domhnall Gleeson, Jesse Plemons, Jayma Mays, Caleb Landry Jones, and Lola Kirke. It is based on the real-life story of Barry Seal, a pilot portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film. The plot follows Seal’s exploits as a CIA operative who is recruited to smuggle drugs and weapons worldwide for the US government.

His illegal activities soon see him crossing paths with the Colombian Medellín cartel and he also gets involved in the Iran-contra scandal. As his fortune increases, Seal finds himself going too deep into dangerous territory.

American Made was well-received critically, with an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. According to the critical consensus on the site, its portrayal of a real-life story matches the carefree and enjoyable energy brought by Tom Cruise in the lead role.

The film received three award nominations, including the Detroit Film Critics Society Awards (Breakthrough Artist - Caleb Landry Jones), the Location Managers Guild International Awards (Outstanding Locations in a Period Film), and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

American Made Locations

On May 18, 2015, the slate went down on the production of American Made. Principal photography took place in Georgia, using the generous incentives and experienced crew base the state offers. Most scenes were filmed in the small town of Ball Ground, located 50 miles north of Atlanta. This picturesque area of Georgia provided an ideal backdrop for an ‘80s Arkansas setting, with its expansive rural landscape and distinctive old-fashioned buildings.

Cherokee Airport was transformed into Seal's airline enterprise and a Nicaraguan airstrip, while the local community enthusiastically embraced the production. A visit to the filming locations of American Made would certainly be worthwhile for anyone who wants to follow in Tom Cruise's footsteps and explore his movie-making experience in greater detail.

Visitors can immerse themselves in local history by visiting popular attractions like Stone Mountain Park, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, or get lost in art galleries around Georgia's major cities.

Besides performing his stunts in most of the movies he graces, Tom Cruise is a licensed pilot. He handled the flying scenes in American Made during filming.

The plane scenes in American Made

Atlanta Media Campus, 6305 Crescent Dr, Norcross, GA 30071, USA

The movie is set in 1978 and revolves around the story of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a Trans World Airlines pilot, who is happily married to Lucy (Sarah Wright). They share two children and have another on the way. During one of his missions, Barry crosses paths with three members of the Medellin Cartel; Carlos Lehder (Fredy Yate), Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda), and Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejía).

The cartel wants to transport drugs to the United States, but most pilots consider the runway risky. Barry decides to take up the task, despite almost crashing into trees during his maiden drug run flight. He eventually manages to recover from the close call and completes his journey without trouble.

The scenes showing Barry on a plane were filmed at Atlanta Media Campus at 6305 Crescent Dr, Norcross, GA 30071, USA. Most of the stage work was filmed at Atlanta Media Campus, a production facility located outside the city.

The studio facility is known for its state-of-the-art filmings equipment, including green screen technology, lighting rigs, and more. The site may not be open to tourists, but you can still contact the owners.

To get to Atlanta Media Campus from Atlanta, take I-85 North or US-78 E and navigate your way there.

Monty takes Barry to the hangar scene in American Made

Candler Field, Williamson, Georgia, USA

Barry meets Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) at a bar. Schafer recognizes Barry's work as a pilot and offers him a job flying reconnaissance missions for the CIA in a smaller plane equipped with cameras. The missions are to take place just south of the border, and Schafer convinces Barry that he will be doing important work, but stresses the need for secrecy, even from family members. He then allows Barry to test-fly the plane.

Candler Field is also a symbol of Atlanta’s rich aviation history dating back to the ‘20s and ‘30s when it served as an airfield. The museum grounds now house exciting pieces, including old aircraft such as a 1940 Douglas DC-3A, Ford Model A, and other vintage planes. Unfortunately, the museum closed in February 2021, but fans can still get a glimpse exterior and take some photos.

From Atlanta navigate your way there via Tara Blvd and US-19 S/US Hwy 41 S. Alternatively, take a bus from Atlanta downtown terminal to Lovejoy GA.

Barry's house scenes in American Made

Ball Ground, Gilmer Ferry Road, GA 30107, USA

A pivotal scene in American Made was shot in the town of Ball Ground, located 50 miles north of Atlanta. Barry urges his wife and their children to pack their belongings so that they can move away hastily. This was in response to a DEA raid on one of the cartel's compounds where Barry was arrested, and Schafer warned him that his house would be next.

Ball Ground provided an authentic ‘80s Arkansas atmosphere, including views of Barry's house, dinner scenes, and city views. A crew filmed the scene at Gilmer Ferry Road, GA 30107, USA for five weeks.

The town has a historical connection with the Cherokee people and is named after a sport they played, which required a large flat field. Interestingly, the Cherokee won the land in a ball game against the Creeks.

From Atlanta, take I-75 N and I-575 N to get to Ball Ground. Public transportation from downtown Atlanta can also get you there.

The Nicaraguan airstrip scene in American Made

Cherokee Airport, 1350 Bishop Rd, Ball Ground, GA 30107, USA

The production team transformed Cherokee Airport into a Nicaraguan airstrip. The local community was supportive of the production.

Seal has a dangerous lifestyle involving cocaine and leading three different lives. Meanwhile, Schafer continues giving him risky tasks, such as flying guns to the Nicaraguan Contras, leading to the Iran/Contra scandal during Reagan's second term. The audience is treated to the sight of Tom Cruise in action, doing thrilling stunts while flying an airplane, as well as his witty interactions with other characters.

The airport is situated at 1350 Bishop Rd, Ball Ground, GA 30107, USA. Cherokee Airport has various aviation facilities, including terminals, hangars, maintenance, and control towers. It also provides access to parking facilities, retail, and dining services, access to nearby hotels, and different modes of transportation such as rental cars, buses, and taxis. The site is accessible to tourists, making it easy for fans to visit.

To get to this location from Atlanta, take I-75 North to Exit 24 toward Airport Dr and then make your way onto Bishop Road.

So you won’t exactly have to hop on a flight to Nicaragua but visiting the filming location of American Made in the U.S. would prove worthwhile. Recounting the tale of TWA pilot Barry Seal, the film takes viewers on a journey through his exotic trade routes across South America and the rapid escalation of events that ultimately lead to his downfall. Through its entertaining visuals, thrilling action scenes, and intriguing storyline, American Made surely delivers an enjoyable experience for any moviegoer.

The movie's high production values make it stand out from other films in the same genre, the exotic sceneries pass for what you expect to see traversing across South America. In conclusion, American Made offers viewers an exciting cinematic experience that they are sure to enjoy.

Although there are some misgivings regarding its anti-American Dream rhetoric, Tom Cruise's captivating performance and the excellent charm offensive undertaken by Liman and Spinelli surely make up for this lack of depth. Therefore, anyone looking for a thrilling ride should definitely check out American Made, which will undoubtedly inspire their filming locations tour in Georgia.

American Made: All Locations Where The Tom Cruise Starrer Was Filmed

Known for his action-packed thrillers with serious character development, ‘ American Made ’ sees visionary auteur Doug Liman team up with Tom Cruise following their collaboration in ‘ Edge of Tomorrow .’ The action-comedy drama film provides a fictionalized account of true political events of the late 1970s and 80s, especially the Iran-Contra scandal. It follows the story of Barry Seal, an enigmatic personality who was central to the affair, and the consequences of actions this adventurous spirit couldn’t handle.

Starting off as a playful pilot, Seal has a family he needs to care for while being away all the time to work for the CIA. Cruise is joined by Domhnall Gleeson, Jesse Plemons, Sarah Wright, and Jayma Mays in this adventure to depict Seal’s lifestyle. The film provides an adrenalin rush on land and in the air, where there are plenty of scenic moments, which were performed by Cruise himself as a licensed pilot. Since the movie is based in different parts of the country, it naturally raises questions about where it was taped.

American Made Filming Locations

‘American Made’ was filmed in several locations in Georgia, Colombia, and Louisiana, specifically in Atlanta, Medellin, and New Orleans. While principal photography commenced on May 18, 2015, in Georgia, it took significant time to film different parts of the movie in plenty of specific locations. With the Georgia locations wrapped up by July 12, 2015, the team moved its filming to Colombia, where Tom Cruise and Liman decided to be adventurous and explored the jungles to scout locations ideal for the shoot.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jayson Warner Smith (@jaysonwsmith)

After a decision was made, the part of the filming in Colombia began on August 26, 2015, and concluded on September 11, 2015, coinciding with a real-life tragedy where two people were killed in a plane crash when the crew members of the production team were returning to Medellin. After this incident, the filming resumed much later on February 3, 2016, in Louisiana and wrapped up just a few days later by February 11, 2016. The filming process post mostly involved reshoots back in Georgia in 2017 from January to February. Let’s learn more about the specific locations where the film was taped.

Cherokee County, Georgia

Most of the filming for ‘American Made’ took place in Georgia, with a very crucial part shot in Ball Ground in Cherokee County. In the movie, the Seal family had to flee their house in Louisiana for a safer home in Mena, Arkansas. The filming for all the scenes set in Mena was actually done in Ball Ground, at Gilmer Ferry Road, where the set for the ranch house was prepared.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by William Mark McCullough (@wmarkmccullough)

The set decoration team progressed in its efficiency along with the plot, adding plenty of renovations and additions to the set to depict the result of Seal’s financial success from his dealings with the cartel. Even the streets of the area were modified slightly to provide the feel of the 80s era, including the installation of plenty of payphones that Seal had to keep using. Even the Nicaraguan airstrip, from where Seal conducts his operations, was shot at the Cherooke airport, located at 1350 Bishop Rd, Ball Ground, GA 30107.

Atlanta, Georgia

Many other scenes for the film were shot in and around Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia. A lot of scenes show Seal on a plane, especially in Atlanta, which were shot at Atlanta Media Campus at 6305 Crescent Drive in Norcross. Close to Atlanta, the scene where the CIA operative gives Seal a private aircraft to fly at a hangar is shot in Candler Field, Williamson. Another training facility was prepared within two days just north of Atlanta in Roswell, where an empty field was chosen as the filming spot.

Interestingly, the scenes set in Louisiana’s Baton Rouge, where the Seal family initially lives, were actually shot in Roswell, too, on the first day of filming. These were exactly taped at 640 Brickleberry Court. Plenty of other scenes and sets had to be located in different parts of Atlanta and some surrounding areas that were chosen within Georgia, such as Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. Other locations that were a part of the film were Morgan, Madison, and Pickens within Georgia. The sets like the CIA office and even offices for George Bush and Olive North had to be built from scratch.

Medellin, Colombia

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Doug Liman (@dougliman)

Since a friendship between Seal and Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel is depicted in the film, some scenes were also shot in Colombia, especially in Medellin. However, due to the unfortunate incident with the production crew, the shooting was wrapped up in a few days. Some parts were also filmed in Santa Marta in Colombia, where the scenic locations proved to be ideal, especially for the flying scenes. A few scenes were likely lensed at Aeroparque Juan Pablo II, a famous waterpark at Cra. 70 #16, Guayabal in Medellín. Nonetheless, all the shooting in these areas was wrapped up within a couple of days before resuming the reshoots in Georgia.

New Orleans, Louisiana

The initial part of ‘American Made’ is based in Baton Rouge, which is a few miles away from New Orleans in Louisiana. This part depicts the time in the lives of the Seal family before they shifted to Arkansas. It showcases the members residing in their suburban home when Seal is still a commercial pilot. As per reports, the shooting period in Louisiana was very brief, with a few aerial shots over Bayou State and one scene in the film at the airport where a vintage New Orleans poster is visible.

Read More: American Made Review: Tom Cruise Delivers

Why Bill Clinton And George W. Bush Are Portrayed In A Tom Cruise Movie About An Infamous Drug Smuggler

"I just wanted to just sort of say, 'We're not ignorant of those allegations,’” said American Made director Doug Liman. Warning: This story contains SPOILERS.

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Reporting From

Tom Cruise in American Made .

American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. Seal's exploits brought him into close contact with infamous figures like Medellín cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega — and he was abetted, the film argues, by the CIA and DEA.

The most eyebrow-raising moments in American Made , however, come when Seal crosses paths with two other major historical figures: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

American Made screenwriter Gary Spinelli ( Stash House ) was interested in the Mena, Arkansas, story as possible fodder for a screenplay, and in his research, he kept coming across Seal. Along with Seal's wildly successful drug smuggling operation, and his subsequent cooperation with the DEA as an informant against the Medellín cartel, Spinelli discovered allegations that Seal was also flying missions for the CIA's campaign to support Contra rebels in Nicaragua — all of which transformed into the Iran-Contra scandal, and dominated President Ronald Reagan's second term.

As is to be expected from purported involvement in clandestine operations, Seal's work with the CIA remains in dispute . But in their interviews with BuzzFeed News, Spinelli and director Doug Liman ( Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity ) said that they were totally comfortable connecting Seal with the CIA based on the basic deduction that Seal could not have pulled off the massive scale of his drug smuggling operation without outside help. "He was flying in and out of the country, unbeknownst to all law enforcement, and it's pretty improbable that he would be able to do that on his own," said Spinelli.

Director Doug Liman and Cruise on the set of American Made .

Seal was murdered in 1986 , by Colombian nationals allegedly carrying out a contract on his life — a fact that, coupled with the fuzzy details surrounding his possible collusion with federal intelligence officials, makes him terrific fodder for a different kind of storytelling, and is ultimately what led the filmmakers to include Clinton and Bush in American Made .

"Barry Seal is like a conspiracy theorist magnet for the left and the right," said Liman.

For example, Spinelli said, "one of the big conspiracy theories around Barry is that he was [George] H.W. Bush's personal pilot, and when Barry was killed, he had Bush's phone number in his back pocket."

Neither filmmaker felt it was appropriate to include that unsubstantiated theory, but they also knew that astute audience members might already be familiar with it. Which is how American Made , which opens Sept. 29, ended up with a scene in which Seal is waiting for a meeting at the White House while sitting next to a young George W. Bush (Connor Trinneer) as they exchange small talk about piloting planes.

"I just wanted to put a little fun thing between Barry and George W. Bush to just sort of say, 'We're not ignorant of those allegations,'" said Liman. "'We're not going to put them in the movie, but we're not making this movie in a vacuum, either.'"

Spinelli said that since Seal reportedly did visit the Reagan White House, he was OK with placing him next to Bush, who also regularly visited the White House when his father was vice president. "You know, there's dramatic license there, but both [Seal and Bush] were pilots, and I just thought it would be a cool moment to have [H.W. Bush's] son meet Barry in the hallway," he said. (Representatives for George W. Bush did not respond to a request to comment.)

Left: An early photo of Bill Clinton, governor-elect of Arkansas. Right: George W. Bush in an undated photo in Arlington, Texas, speaking during a Texas Rangers game.

Seal's connection to Clinton, meanwhile, is even more fraught with conspiracies: Some claim that, as governor of Arkansas, Clinton actively participated with the CIA in smuggling cocaine into the US. Googling Clinton's and Seal's names together produces reams of stories with screaming headlines like "Mena Coverup - Bill & Hillary Clinton's Arkansas Cocaine Operation" and "EXPOSED: Clinton's Trafficked MASSIVE CIA Shipments of Cocaine" and "SNOW JOB: THE CIA, COCAINE, AND BILL CLINTON."

Before American Made went into production, Liman actually cut allegations in Spinelli's original script that the CIA was directly trafficking in cocaine with Seal — in part because, as fate would have it, the chief counsel for the Senate's investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal was Liman's late father, Arthur L. Liman. "My father's deputy said he had looked into those specific allegations and found them so without merit that he didn't even put it in the report to deny it because that gives it some weight," Liman said.

But both Spinelli and Liman understood that, as with the Bush family, they couldn't tell Seal's story and not at least tip their hats to the cottage industry of fringe Clinton conspiracies involving him. So they included a scene in which, after Seal has been arrested by multiple agencies, the attorney general of Arkansas fields a call from then-governor Clinton. Afterwards, Seal is released from custody and immediately whisked away to the White House — the implication being that Clinton had been asked by the Reagan administration to cut Seal loose so he could begin informing for the DEA.

Clinton never appears in the scene — we only know it's him on the phone after the state attorney general calls him "Bill" — but the filmmakers claim that this event, or at least something like it, did happen.

"We knew that somehow Barry was operating with immunity. The CIA was operating with immunity in Arkansas. So there had to have been some involvement of the governor's office," said Liman. "There is a prosecutor in Arkansas who was told to back off. And so we combined that with the fact that the CIA was for sure operating in Arkansas and Clinton was the governor, to condense it down into one specific moment."

Cruise in American Made .

In a 1994 press conference, President Clinton was asked specifically about how much he knew about the CIA's alleged operation in Mena, Arkansas. "They didn't tell me anything about it," Clinton said. "The airport in question and all the events in question were the subject of state and federal inquiries. It was primarily a matter for federal jurisdiction. The state really had next to nothing to do with it. … We had nothing — zero — to do with it. And everybody who's ever looked into it knows that." (A representative for Clinton did not respond to a request seeking further comment.)

While both Spinelli and Liman stand by American Made ’s assertions, they ultimately set out to make an entertaining movie — and by having Seal narrate his own story, they can couch their narrative in his subjective point of view. "He really is telling you his version of it," said Spinelli. "What the facts are of the record don't matter as much as what Barry thought had happened."

"Nowhere does the film deal with the consequences of Barry's actions," added Liman. "Barry doesn't tell you the part of the story where, say, American inner cities are being decimated by the influx of drugs. That's not part of Barry's narrative. … We're not making a biopic. We're more interested in the mechanics of how an operation like this works, and the kinds of people that get involved. Because it's really fun." Particularly when it potentially involves former presidents.

Thumbnail photo credits: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive; David James / Universal Pictures; Rich Pilling / Getty Images

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American Made 's fast-and-loose attitude with its real-life story mirrors the cavalier -- and delightfully watchable -- energy Tom Cruise gives off in the leading role.

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‘American Made’ Film Ranks #4 in U.S. on Netflix

Posted by AY Staff | Oct 16, 2023 | Art & Entertainment , Latest News from AY | 0 |

“American Made,” a film that showcases the smuggling of drugs through the Mena, Arkansas airport in the 1980s, just came to Netflix and is already ranked #4 on its list of Top 10 Movies in the U.S. Today (Oct. 16, 2023).

The film is based on the true story of Barry Seal, a commercial pilot who was recruited by the CIA as an informant in 1983, and then quickly became a drug smuggler for the Medellín cartel. Seal, who is portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 2017 film, avoided jail time by becoming an informant for the DEA but was then assassinated in 1986 at the hands of the Medellín cartel.

Rumors of the drug smuggling operation in Mena circulated for years, but were confirmed in 2020 after released FBI documents indicated Seal conducted his operation from Baton Rouge to Rich Mountain Aviation at the Mena Intermountain Airport. However, the basis of the 2017 Tom Cruise movie was built off of several books, conspiracy theories and movies about Seal – the New York Times referring to the film as the “Conspiratorial Industry Complex.”

While “American Made” doesn’t appear to paint the city of Mena nor its citizens in a bad light, it still doesn’t sit well with some Polk County residents. Will you be watching it on Netflix to help keep it on the charts?

READ ALSO: Nichols, Tucker Discuss ‘The Bikeriders’ Before Arkansas Premiere

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The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

American Made , the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to make the phenomenon of raining money a plausible ecological scenario. And a sex scene in the cockpit of a plane. That’s flying through the air. With one participant being the pilot. Did we mention it’s Tom Cruise?

If it sounds like an exercise in screenwriting excess, it’s not entirely — the film takes as its inspiration the true story of Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, a TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and, later, an informant for the DEA. It’s an ideal vehicle for Cruise, a.k.a. Maverick , whose mischievous swagger is accented here (literally) with a Louisiana drawl.

The movie hardly purports to be a documentary — director Doug Liman, who reteams with Cruise after Edge of Tomorrow , has referred to it as “a fun lie based on a true story.” And perhaps its looseness with the facts is for the best, as conflicting accounts make it difficult to get a clear picture on certain aspects of Seal’s seemingly made-for-the-movies life. It’s a thorny story that takes place against the backdrop of the Reagan-era War on Drugs and the notorious Iran-Contra affair , with Seal never hesitating to do business with opposing sides, so long as the payout was prodigious.

Here’s what we know about Seal — and what’s still up for debate.

MORE: Review: American Made Lets a Smug Tom Cruise Just Be Tom Cruise

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

According to Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal — written by retired FBI agent Del Hahn, who worked on the task force that went after Seal in the ’80s — Seal obtained his student pilot license at 15 and became fully licensed at 16. His instructor was so impressed by his natural talent that he allowed him to fly solo after only eight hours of training. After serving in the National Guard and Army Reserve, he became a pilot with TWA, among the youngest command pilots to operate a Boeing 707.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

As Cruise plays him, Seal was a blend of balls and braggadocio, fond of stunts and rarely registering the possibilities of danger or failure. According to Hahn, Seal’s high school yearbook photo was accompanied by the inscription, “Full of fun, full of folly.” His flight instructor described him as wild and fearless and generally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. In an interview with Vice , Hahn says Seal was personable but “not as smart and clever as he thought he was.”

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Sarah Wright plays Seal’s delightfully foul-mouthed wife in the movie, alternately exasperated by his schemes and enthralled by the riches they bring. In reality, Seal was married three times and had five children. He had a son and daughter with first wife Barbara Bottoms, whom he married in 1963 and subsequently divorced. He then married Linda McGarrh Ross in 1971, divorcing a year later, before marrying Deborah Ann DuBois, with whom he would go on to have three children, in 1974.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

While the film depicts Seal’s foray into smuggling as beginning with Cuban cigars, his first documented run-in with the law for a smuggling offense took place in 1972 when he was one of eight people arrested for a plot to smuggle explosives out of the U.S. Though he wasn’t convicted, he lost his job with TWA. By 1976, according to Hahn, he had moved onto marijuana, and within a couple of years graduated to cocaine, which was less bulky, less sniffable by dogs and generally more profitable.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Seal and the pilots he recruited — including one he met in jail and his first wife’s brother — trafficked drugs over the border of his home state. As in the movie, he sometimes delivered them by pushing packed duffel bags out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be retrieved by partners on the ground.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

In the movie, Seal meets the cartel big wigs early on. In reality, Hahn writes, he did not deal with them directly, and they referred to him only as “El Gordo,” or “The Fat Man.” He finally met with them in April 1984 when he was working with the DEA on a sting operation intended to lead to their capture. (That operation would go awry when Seal’s status as an informant was revealed in a Washington Times cover story months later.)

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

The DEA was onto Seal for a long time before securing an indictment against him in March 1983 on several counts, including conspiracy to distribute methaqualone and possession with intent to distribute Quaaludes. As the movie suggests, there was some confusion among government agencies intent on taking him down.

His initial attempt to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, offering information on the Ochoa family, was rejected. But in March 1984, he traveled to Washington to the office of the Vice President’s Drug Task Force and cut a deal on the strength of his intel on and connections to the cartel.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

The film has Seal’s involvement with the CIA beginning in the late 1970s, relatively early on in his smuggling career. Under the handling of an agent played by Domhnall Gleeson, Cruise’s Seal gathers intelligence by flying low over Guatemala and Nicaragua and snapping photos from his plane. Later, the CIA turns a blind eye to his drug smuggling in exchange for his delivery of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua, who the U.S. government was attempting to mobilize against the leftist Sandinistas, who controlled the government. The movie even suggests that the CIA helped set Seal up with his very own airport in the small town of Mena, Ark.

According to Hahn’s book, rumors of Seal’s involvement with the CIA anytime before 1984 were just that — rumors. The only confirmed connection between Seal and the CIA turned up by Hahn’s research was in 1984, after Seal had begun working as an informant for the DEA. The CIA placed a hidden camera in a cargo plane Seal flew to pick up a cocaine shipment in Colombia. He and his copilot were able to obtain photographs that proved a link between the Sandinistas and the cartel, key intelligence for the Reagan administration in its plans to help overthrow the Sandinistas’ regime. But the final piece of the operation — a celebration of the successful cocaine transport, at which the Ochoas and Escobar were to be arrested all at once — never happened because of the revelation of Seal’s status as an informant.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

Jorge Ochoa reportedly ordered a hit on Seal early in 1986. At the time, Seal was living in a Baton Rouge Salvation Army facility. Charges against him had not been fully erased as a result of his cooperation with the government, and he was sentenced to probation and six months residing at the treatment center. On the evening of Feb. 19, just after he parked his Cadillac, he was killed by two Colombian hitmen armed with machine guns.

Thanks in part to several witnesses, both men and four additional men who conspired in the killing were arrested within two days. Seal would go down as a legendary criminal, one of the most important witnesses in DEA history and — in Hollywood’s estimation, at least — a classic American story fit for only our most American onscreen hero.

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Write to Eliza Berman at [email protected]

Tom Cruise’s New Movie Set in Ark. Opens Friday

Posted: Sep 28, 2017 / 01:18 PM CDT

Updated: Sep 28, 2017 / 02:33 PM CDT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Tom Cruise’s new movie “American Made” opens Friday, and it’s partially set in Arkansas.

The film focuses on a commercial airline pilot named Barry Seal who eventually starts smuggling drugs into the country while working with the CIA. Seal was an actual pilot and drug smuggler from the 1970s.

Portions of the story are set in Mena, Arkansas.

Check out a trailer for the film below.

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American Made [Movie]

The 2017 film American Made , starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, and Sarah Wright Olsen, is a fictionalized retelling of events in the life of smuggler and pilot Barry Seal, who, during the 1980s, transported drugs and guns between Central America and the United States. The film was written by Gary Spinelli and directed by Doug Liman. Although not filmed in Arkansas, parts of the film are set in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Mena (Polk County) . American Made had an estimated budget of $50 million and was released in the United States on September 29, 2017.

The film opens in 1978 with Cruise playing commercial airline pilot Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, who occasionally smuggles contraband on his flights. At an airport bar, Seal meets fictional CIA agent Monty Schafer (Gleeson), who takes Seal to an airport hangar, where he shows him a new twin-engine airplane and offers him a “covert” job taking aerial photographs of rebel encampments in Central America for a company called Independent Aviation Consultants (IAC). Agent Schafer tells Seal that Seal will be the head of the company. But he warns that if anyone, including Seal’s wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright Olsen), finds out about their “after hours” activities, “that’d be a problem.”

Seal is later shown flying over Guatemala and being fired upon by forces on the ground. At the same time, Agent Schafer is shown taking credit for Seal’s aerial photographs in Washington DC. Seal also flies over El Salvador and is later given a new assignment to deliver intelligence in Panama to and from dictator Manuel Noriega.

In 1980, Seal flies to Colombia, where he is picked up while trying to refuel his airplane and taken to famed drug smuggler Pablo Escobar, who offers to pay Seal “$2,000 per kilo” to help Escobar smuggle his cocaine to Miami, Florida, from a small landing strip in the Colombian jungle. Before Seal can refuse, Escobar has Seal’s plane filled with packages of “product.” Seal tells them that he has a better plan: dropping the drugs from his plane over Louisiana. Escobar later hands Seal a bag of money just as the police invade his house. Seal tries to escape but is arrested. In jail, Seal is bailed out by Agent Schafer, who tells Seal that Seal and his family have to leave Louisiana.

Following the election of Ronald Reagan, Agent Schafer tells Seal that he has a new job for Seal in Mena. Seal moves his family to Arkansas, where he meets with Agent Schafer, who takes him to the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport . Agent Schafer shows Seal a shipment of AK-47s and gives him the intelligence he needs to fly the guns to Central America undetected. Seal hires four other pilots to fly missions for him in which they begin shipping both drugs and guns back and forth from Central America. Agent Schafer informs Seal he now has to smuggle Contras (U.S.-backed rebel forces attempting to overthrow Nicaragua’s left-wing government) to Mena, where they are going to “train.”

Seal’s operation expands as the military takes over part of his airport to train the Contras there. Now a very successful businessman, Seal opens a bank account in Mena and buys his wife a new Cadillac. In 1983, Seal and his pilots nearly get caught flying over the Gulf of Mexico. After learning of Seal’s large bank deposits, FBI agent Craig McCall (E. Roger Mitchell) arrives in Mena, where one bank has given Seal his own vault.

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol forces Seal to land his plane. Seal crash lands in a suburban neighborhood, where he emerges from his plane covered in cocaine but manages to escape. After accepting another job from Escobar, Seal gives his brother-in-law J. B. (Caleb Landry Jones) a passport and a bag of money with orders to disappear. After driving away, J. B.’s car explodes, killing him. Seal is arrested and taken to the Pulaski County Courthouse , where he meets with fictional Attorney General Dana Sibota (Jayma Mays), who lets Seal go after a call from Governor Bill Clinton . Seal is then taken to an airport and flown via private jet to the White House in Washington DC.

In 1984, Seal meets with Oliver North and other officials, who ask Seal to take more photographs, this time for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Seal secretly photographs Escobar and his men loading and unloading his airplane. At home, Seal and his family see his “confidential” photos being shown on television by President Reagan. He is later arrested and sentenced to community service. On December 20, 1985, Seal tapes his confession using a video camera at a motel. On February 19, 1986, Seal makes another video before being assassinated in his car. The film ends with a montage linking Agent Schafer and Seal’s planes to the Iran-Contra Affair. Lucy is seen working at a fast food restaurant with a diamond bracelet on her wrist.

The film diverges wildly from what is known about Barry Seal. The real-life Barry Seal was an overweight former pilot who had served in both the Louisiana National Guard and in the Twentieth Special Forces Group for six years before working for the airline TWA. In the film, actor Tom Cruise plays him as a cocky young pilot not unlike Cruise’s character Maverick in 1986’s Top Gun . Agent Schafer, played by Gleeson, is entirely fictional, as the real Seal began smuggling well before the two characters met in the film. Other events in the film, including Seal landing a plane full of cocaine in a suburban neighborhood, never happened. The real Seal had at least five children, not three, and was married three times. While the extent of his work with the CIA is unknown, Seal was a known drug smuggler who did move his operation to Arkansas. In fact, the film’s original name was Mena , but this was reportedly changed to lessen the emphasis on its connections to Arkansas.

The film opened to more than $16 million its first weekend in the United States and Canada and grossed nearly $135 million worldwide. Most critics praised the film, even as they described it as something of a generic Tom Cruise feature. Director Liman acknowledged that the film did not attempt to be accurate to history and was not meant to be a biopic.

Seal’s exploits have been documented by several writers including Mara Leveritt in her 1999 and 2021 books The Boys on the Tracks and All Quiet at Mena and in Del Hahn’s 2016 book Smuggler’s End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal .

For additional information: “ American Made .” Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/ (accessed May 21, 2022).

Bowden, Bill. “’80s Drug, Gun Saga Remains a Sore Spot.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , October 1, 2017, pp. 1A, 8A.

Leveritt, Mara. All Quiet at Mena: A Reporter’s Memoir of Buried Investigations . Little Rock: Bird Call Press, 2021.

———. “Who’s Afraid of Barry Seal?” Arkansas Times , September 28, 2017. Online at https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal (accessed May 21, 2022).

Cody Lynn Berry Benton, Arkansas

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What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in American Made

Like The Wolf of Wall Street , American Made is based on the real-life exploits of a “lovable” rogue, Barry Seal. Also like TWWS , it gets us rooting for our hero despite his engaging in morally questionable, not to mention illegal, activities like gun-running and drug smuggling. To win us over, it uses many of the same techniques employed by TWWS : having our dubious hero played by an extremely charismatic star, in this case Tom Cruise, fully at home in the cockpit as another cocksure pilot; giving him a gorgeous blonde wife and adorable children for whom he’s doing it all; and, that standby of engaging villains from Richard III to House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, breaking the fourth wall with confessions directly into the camera, thus making us co-conspirators.

Plus, director Doug Liman and screenwriter Gary Spinelli streamline the story to suggest Seal had rather less agency in becoming a career criminal than the actual facts would indicate.

Recruitment

In the movie, Seal is an ace pilot whose daredevil streak leads him from TWA to the CIA. He’s bored rigid flying commercial flights, so he takes to performing stunts that trigger the oxygen masks and terrify passengers. His aviation skills and reputation for sailing close to the wind lead to an approach from Schafer, a CIA agent (or possibly a composite of several) played by Domhnall Gleeson (whose father, actor Brendan Gleeson, resembles the stocky real Seal much more than sleek Tom Cruise does). Schafer recruits Seal to take reconnaissance photos of guerillas operating in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, wooing him with a super-fast, super-nimble twin engine plane.

The real-life Seal seems to have joined up with the CIA much earlier. The late investigative journalist Alexander Cockburn contended that Seal first came into contact with the CIA in the ’60s as a special forces helicopter pilot in Vietnam and maintained links with them throughout his TWA years. Other accounts suggest his links might have gone back as far as the Bay of Pigs. Moreover, although the film suggests Seal was just an excitement-loving pilot who got swept up into espionage at the time, eight years earlier he had been attempting to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to some anti-Castro Cubans based in Mexico when he was arrested by the U.S. Customs Service . And far from resigning from TWA in 1978 to pursue this new, more exciting career in spying, he was fired in 1974 for falsely claiming medical leave when actually he was absent due to weapons trafficking. He escaped prosecution only because the CIA intervened, stating a trial would threaten national security.

Guerrilla reconnaissance

As a good ol’ boy from Louisiana, Seal readily accepts that the rationale for taking photographs is “fightin’ communists,” and the filmmakers don’t provide much context for this assessment.

In real life, of course, one person’s communist insurgent is another person’s freedom fighter. While certainly left-wing and receiving aid and training from Cuba, the guerrilla movements in these Central American countries were primarily a reaction to brutal dictatorships and, as a 1983 presidential commission reported , “decades of poverty, bloody repression, and frustrated efforts at bringing about political reform.” Oliver Stone’s kind-of based-on-true-events Salvador (1986) gives a view of the conflict from the other side.

Enter the Medellín

2017 Universal Studios, Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

In American Made , Seal is just minding his own business refueling his plane in Colombia in 1980 when he is bundled into a car and taken to a hidden airstrip in the Colombian jungle. There he is made an offer he can’t refuse by three “businessmen” (one named Pablo Escobar) in need of a pilot with the skills to navigate the dangerously short runway. Already feeling undercompensated by the CIA for the loss of his TWA pension and health care, Seal is swayed by the promise of $2,000 per kilo of cocaine brought to the U.S.

In real life, according to statements in his Drug Enforcement Administration file, Seal was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976 and began smuggling cocaine in 1978, well before any contact with the cartel.

Arrested in Colombia

The film has Seal becoming buddies with cartel kingpins Escobar and Ochoa after forming a lucrative partnership and partying with them at their penthouse in Cartagena, at least until the party is broken up by the Colombian Army. The kingpins, plus Seal, are thrown in jail, but while the Colombians walk free the next day, Seal remains incarcerated until Schafer gets him out. The agent later warns Seal that the smuggler has to get himself and his family out of Baton Rouge before sunrise in order to avoid a police raid and arranges for them to relocate to remote Mena, Arkansas, where the agency provides Seal with not only a house but also an airfield.

In reality, Seal was arrested with 40 kilograms of cocaine and spent nine months in a Honduran jail. There he met Ochoa’s New Orleans business manager, who brought Seal into the Medellín cartel’s orbit in 1982. He became its chief link to cocaine markets in the southeastern U.S., with his 1981 bank records showing daily deposits of $50,000 into a Bahamian bank. Also, he moved to Mena of his own accord in 1982.

Supporting the Contras

In the movie, in return for his get out of jail free card, Schafer wants Seal to fly AK-47s out of Mena to the Contras, the insurgent group tasked with overthrowing the Sandinistas, the leftwing movement that itself overthrew the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979 and took his place. Then Schafer ups the ante by requiring Seal to return bearing Contras who will be trained in Mena. Meanwhile, Seal’s old pals Ochoa and Escobar suggest he drop off some of his guns in Colombia and resume bringing in cocaine on the return trip.

It is certainly true that Seal’s planes (by now he had a fleet) flew from Mena to Colombia, making refueling stops in Panama and Honduras (where the Contras were training) before returning laden with approximately $13 million worth of drugs.

Cockburn, among several other journalists and historians, also alleged that a quid pro quo existed, with the CIA turning a blind eye to Seal’s drug smuggling in return for his using it as cover to get weapons to the Contras. Further, there are allegations that Seal bought several of his planes from CIA-owned companies such as Air America (itself the subject of Roger Spottiswoode’s 1990 movie of the same name ) and Southern Air Transport.

The main source for the allegations that the Contras were brought for training in Arkansas is a book by a former Seal pilot named Terry Reed. However, many of those named in the book have disputed his account, with one bringing suit for libel.

In the film’s telling, the CIA abandoned Seal—getting rid of any paper trail or hard evidence that could link them to the smuggler—right before the ATF and the DEA and the FBI and the state police raid the Mena airport. Seal is charged in Arkansas with weapons, drug, and money-laundering offenses, but gets off with a community service order and is whisked off to the White House.

In reality, the DEA busted Seal for smuggling 200,000 Quaaludes into Florida in 1983. Facing a 10-year stretch, he was desperate to make a deal, but the DEA wasn’t interested. Going over their heads, he met with two members of then–Vice President George H.W. Bush’s Task Force on Drugs, offering his services as an undercover informant. Lured by the promise of getting inside information on the Medellín cartel, in March 1984 the DEA listed Seal as an official informant and got his sentence reduced.

What happened next is murky. According to Robert Joura, the DEA agent working with Seal, on the next pickup either Escobar or Ochoa told Seal the cartel was moving its base from Colombia to Nicaragua and giving a cut of its profits to the Sandinistas in exchange for use of an airfield in Managua.

But given that the cartel was operating more or less with impunity everywhere else in Central America and this would only further antagonize the U.S., another theory suggests this was a scheme cooked up by Seal and Ochoa to keep Seal on the good side of the intelligence community. At any rate, Seal went to Florida to face long-delayed sentencing on his Quaalude bust, receiving 10 years reduced to six months’ probation thanks to letters of support from the CIA and DEA.

Enter Oliver North

At this point, American Made introduces the controversial figure of Lt. Col. Oliver North, Reagan’s point man on anti-Sandinista activities, who is keen to give Seal one more mission: to obtain proof the Nicaraguan government is in bed with the cartel. To this end, they modify his new former Army C-123 transport plane so that he can take photographs unobtrusively.

Seal flies to Managua and duly obtains pictures of Escobar and Sandinista soldiers taking delivery of kilos of cocaine. But in his haste to nail the commies so that Congress will fund arms shipments, North releases the pictures before the Colombians are in custody. His cover blown, Seal is of no further use to the DEA, who promptly seize his assets. Worse, he must spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for a vengeful cartel.

In real life, Seal’s cover was blown even before the photographs appeared when, thanks to NSC and CIA leaks, the Washington Times ran a front-page story on the Sandinistas’ drug trafficking on July 17, 1984. But Congress was not persuaded and passed the Boland amendment prohibiting direct military aid to the Contras.

This meant that North still needed Seal to run guns for his operation, until the pilot was busted again in December 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for smuggling marijuana. Thanks to testifying in three major drug trials over the next year that helped obtain convictions, he got off with five years’ probation along with six months at a local halfway house. Aftermath and death

As in the movie, three men shot Seal to death as he sat outside a Salvation Army in Baton Rouge in his white Cadillac. He died on Feb. 19, 1986, and three Colombian men were convicted of his murder .

After Seal’s death, a 1986–1989 Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation popularly known as the Kerry Committee report found that the State Department had made payments to known drug traffickers from funds earmarked for Contra humanitarian assistance. (Arthur L. Liman, the director’s father, was the chief counsel for the Senate investigation, which is what got the filmmaker interested in Iran–Contra in the first place .) The Reagan administration admitted that funds from cocaine smuggling had helped fund the Contras but insisted it was a rogue operation carried out without the government’s knowledge.

Even if some of the specifics vary, the film is true to two essential elements of Seal’s story. One, he made a hell of a lot of money—estimates range from $50 million (Seal himself) to $5 billion (Arkansas State Police investigators). In any case, it all seems to have disappeared. Secondly, Seal was a man caught between a rock and a hard place. As his brother Wendell said , he had become entangled in so many relationships “it was hard to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.”

Who’s afraid of Barry Seal?

The 'true lie' behind Tom Cruise's new film on the notorious drug-trafficker-turned-federal-informant who operated out of Arkansas.

BARRY SEAL: He imported drugs and laundered money while working for the federal government.

The poster for the movie “American Made,” to be released Friday, Sept. 29, shows a grinning, cocky Tom Cruise as the drug smuggler Barry Seal, hauling a duffle bag bursting with cash. “It’s not a felony if you’re doing it for the good guys,” the poster teases. The film’s trailer has Seal casually boasting about his simultaneous work for “the CIA, the DEA and Pablo Escobar.”

One critic was led to ask: “So, was Seal a triple agent?” Perhaps. The producers say this swaggering story, based mostly in Arkansas, is all “based on a true lie.”

“American Made” is Hollywood’s second film about Seal, the trafficker-turned-government-informant who is fast becoming America’s most intriguing outlaw. HBO released the first, “Doublecrossed,” starring Dennis Hopper as Seal, in 1991, five years after Seal’s controversial murder.

When Cruise’s film was announced, its title was going to be “Mena,” after the town in Arkansas where a local company hid Seal’s aircraft and modified them for drug drops. I was a reporter focusing on drugs in the 1980s, but I learned of Seal’s three-year presence at Mena only after the night in 1986 when Colombian assassins gunned him down in Baton Rouge, La.

I became one of many reporters who tried to untangle Seal’s story and, though that task ultimately proved impossible, I did learn a lot about him. But now, the bits and pieces collected about Seal have provided enough material — enough “true lies” — for Hollywood to weave into films that enlarge his legend.

But his actual story is littered with dead ends — secrets that are still being carefully kept — especially in Arkansas. And here, I’m sorry to say, some police records that were open to the public 20 years ago are apparently no longer available.

I wouldn’t know this if it weren’t for Cruise’s film. When it was announced with a planned release in 2016, Rod Lorenzen, the manager of Butler Center Books, a division of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, asked me to write a history of Seal’s time in Arkansas to correspond with the movie’s release. I was honored. The Butler Center is part of the highly respected Arkansas Studies Institute, a creation of the Central Arkansas Library System and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

I’m a huge admirer of the ASI and consider its staff my friends. Yet I declined. I told Lorenzen that the book he proposed would be too hard to write; that there were still too many people in power — in both political parties — who did not want Seal’s full story told.

But Lorenzen persisted. I began to waver, recalling the words of some Arkansans who’d known Barry Seal.

“I can arrest an old hillbilly out here with a pound of marijuana and a local judge and jury would send him to the penitentiary,” a former sheriff at Mena in 1988 had said, “but a guy like Seal flies in and out with hundreds of pounds of cocaine and he stays free.”

The prosecuting attorney there had avowed: “I believe that the activities of Mr. Seal came to be so valuable to the Reagan White House and so sensitive that no information concerning Seal’s activities could be released to the public. The ultimate result was that not only Seal but all of his confederates and all of those who worked with or assisted him in illicit drug traffic were protected by the government.”

And this, by the Internal Revenue Service agent who’d found evidence of money laundering at Mena: “There was a cover-up.”

Nothing had changed with regard to Seal since those men spoke those words, except that the savage war on drugs had ground on, while Seal — whatever he was — remained a hidden but important part of its history. Finally, I told Lorenzen I would write the book; I would document as much as I could of Seal’s secretive Arkansas years.

We agreed that the book would be called “The Mena File: Barry Seal’s Ties to Drug Lords and U.S. Officials.” Lorenzen commissioned a cover while I began my research by contacting the Arkansas State Police. I knew the agency had an extensive file on Seal because I’d read it decades earlier, shortly after Seal’s murder. In fact, I still had a letter from the former director advising me, in case I’d planned to make copies, that the file held some 3,000 pages.

But now, three decades after Seal’s murder, State Police spokesman Bill Sadler reported that he could locate no files on Seal. None. Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act requires the release of public records, but Sadler said that, in Seal’s case, the agency was unable to do that. I protested, and after weeks of back-and-forth, Sadler reported that a file on Seal had been discovered. He eventually provided a packet of 409 pages. He said this was all the agency could release after duplicates and documents that are exempt from public disclosure were removed.

Even allowing for duplicates and legal exemptions, I would find the reduction of publicly available records, from 3,000 pages 20 years ago to just over 400 now, disturbing. My concern increases when the case is one of national interest that’s also replete with political connections. As Sadler suggested, the state police in the past may have made too much available. On the other hand, if the grip on information about Seal has been tightened, the reason for this extra control might be traced to his earliest days in Arkansas.

By late 1982, when Seal moved his aircraft to Mena from his home base in Baton Rouge, federal agents had already identified him as “a major international narcotics trafficker.” Police watching Mena’s airport notified federal authorities that a fat man from Louisiana had begun frequenting an aircraft modification company there called Rich Mountain Aviation.

That same year, President Ronald Reagan appointed Asa Hutchinson, already a tough, anti-drug crusader, as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. Wanting to keep tabs on Seal, Hutchinson ordered William Duncan, an investigator for the IRS, to watch for signs of money laundering around Mena resulting from Seal’s presence.

Another investigator, Russell Welch of the State Police, was assigned to look for evidence of cocaine arriving there. Duncan and Welch both told me that being assigned to Seal ended up ruining their careers.

Welch said he began to suspect that something was amiss one night in December 1983, when he and several other law enforcement officers had staked out the airport, watching for Seal. He said they’d seen the smuggler and his co-pilot land and taxi to a hangar at Rich Mountain Aviation, where workers installed an illegal, extra fuel tank in the plane.

Welch said that Seal had taken off into the wintry night, fast and without lights. But what he remembered most was how surprised he, the FBI agents and the Arkansas Game and Fish officer who’d joined them had been that, although officers for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had met them at a motel in Mena, none had gone with them to the stakeout.

THE FAT MAN AND THE FAT LADY: Seal and his C-123 airplane, both nicknamed for their girth.

Seal had no criminal convictions at the time, but he did have a puzzling record. Ten years earlier, federal agents in Louisiana had caught him attempting to take off from an airport in Shreveport with a planeload of plastic explosives bound for Cuban ex-patriots in Mexico. Seal was charged with being part of a plot to overthrow Fidel Castro. But prosecutors abruptly dropped the case at the start of his trial. That event, relatively early in Seal’s career, would later prompt speculation — unquestioned in Cruise’s film — that he performed contract work for the Central Intelligence Agency.

From later court records, we know that in April 1981, before Seal moved to Mena, DEA agents in Florida had caught him in a drug sting. We know that while his case there was pending, Seal agreed to become an informant for the DEA — but that the circumstances of that deal were also strange. In the summer of 1984, facing possible life in prison if convicted, he’d flown his Lear jet to Washington, D.C., where, in a meeting with top DEA officials, he’d established the terms that would allow him to remain free.

Duncan and Welch were not informed of Seal’s change of status as they pursued their respective investigations. Throughout 1984, they had no idea that Seal was supposedly working for an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. So far as they could tell, he was a drug-runner continuing to run drugs, while the DEA remained, as both officers put it, “conspicuously absent” from Mena. The Arkansas lawmen, along with their peers in Louisiana, could scarcely have imagined all that Seal was up to that year.

From a variety of surviving court records, we know that DEA officials in Florida cooked up a plan for him to help them round up the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín cartel in one dramatic sting. Suffice it to say that the plan turned into a catastrophic failure — one that exposed Seal’s status as an informant to his former associates in the cartel.

With Seal’s usefulness in that regard ended, he was put to another use. This time it was a political one — on behalf of Reagan’s White House. Reagan wanted evidence that officials of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, which he opposed, were shipping cocaine into the U.S. After allowing CIA technicians to install hidden cameras in his C-123, Seal flew to Nicaragua and returned with photographs that he said showed Sandinista leaders helping load cocaine onto the plane.

But again, Seal was compromised. Someone who knew of the flight leaked word of it to a Washington newspaper. Seal’s status as an informant was confirmed, placing his life at still greater risk.

After that, the justice department found yet another use for Seal, as U.S. attorneys began calling him to testify about his experiences with major drug dealers whom they were prosecuting. From Seal’s testimony at some of those traffickers’ trials, we know that he claimed to have grossed $750,000 per flight while he was smuggling for the cartel; that he continued to fly in drugs after becoming an informant; that he had smuggled about 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. during that period; and that for one of those flights alone the DEA had allowed him to keep the $575,000 he’d been paid.

But it’s clear that by late 1984, Seal was getting worried. A man who had lived by secrets suddenly made the unthinkable move of agreeing to be interviewed by a reporter. Seal flew Louisiana TV reporter Jack Camp to Mena, where he allowed Camp to film him inside the C-123 as he talked about his work for the DEA, while pointing out the places where the CIA technicians had hidden their cameras.

It was only after Camp’s interview aired on Baton Rouge television in late 1984 that law enforcement in Louisiana — and, quickly enough, Arkansas — accidentally learned of Seal’s dual roles. But even now his status remained unclear, and federal officials weren’t trying to help. Seal was still flying, apparently free, in both states, while ground crews, including workers at Rich Mountain Aviation, continued to work with him. Duncan and Welch focused their own investigations on the period before Seal became an informant.

In mid-1985, Duncan told Hutchinson that he had sworn statements from employees at Rich Mountain Aviation and Mena bankers about illegal cash deposits being made into area banks. With what he called this “direct evidence of money laundering,” Duncan asked Hutchinson to subpoena 20 witnesses, all of whom, he said, were ready to testify before a federal grand jury. But Duncan said that Hutchinson balked and, in contrast to his conduct in other cases where Duncan had requested subpoenas, in this case the U.S. attorney subpoenaed only three. Later, when Duncan was asked under oath in a deposition whether he believed there was a cover-up, he replied, “It was covered up.”

In August 1985, shortly after Duncan’s request for subpoenas, U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese flew to Fort Smith to meet with Hutchinson. DEA Administrator John C. Lawn was with him. While the nation’s two drug officials were in town, they held a press conference with Hutchinson to announce a series of raids dubbed “Operation Delta-9,” which they said were meant to eradicate home-grown marijuana. Although Fort Smith sits just 70 miles north of Mena, nobody mentioned Seal. No one even mentioned cocaine.

By then, though local investigators still did not know it, Seal had become a darling of the Department of Justice. In October 1985, the President’s Commission on Organized Crime invited him to be the featured speaker at a symposium in the capital attended by several top U.S. law enforcement officers. The following month Hutchinson announced that, having decided to run for Congress, he would be resigning as U.S. attorney.

At first, it looked like Hutchinson’s successor, J. Michael Fitzhugh, was ready to act on the cases related to Seal. In December 1985, Fitzhugh announced that he had subpoenaed Seal to testify at a grand jury session to be held in Hot Springs. In preparation, he sent Duncan to Baton Rouge to interview Seal, and the State Police sent Welch.

When I interviewed the investigators for my book, they told me that Seal seemed weary. He and his attorney fretted that Seal’s deals from Florida would not protect him in Arkansas. But, after some dickering, Seal agreed to be sworn in. “I don’t want to waste these men’s time,” he told his attorney, Lewis Unglesby. “They have come a long way in bad weather and it’s Christmas.”

In the recorded interview that followed, Seal acknowledged some, if not all, of his business with Rich Mountain Aviation. He told Duncan and Welch that he had warned the company’s owner that he stood “a good chance of going to jail” for the illegal modifications Rich Mountain Aviation had performed on his planes and that the owner had “better get himself a lawyer and be ready to look at pleading guilty.”

But five days before the grand jury was set to convene, Fitzhugh suddenly canceled Seal’s appearance, due to what he termed Seal’s “lack of credibility.” Duncan and Welch were incredulous. By now they knew that Seal had been invited to the Washington symposium largely because of the respect he’d won from U.S. attorneys for his testimony at high-profile trials. Duncan and Welch could not understand — and Fitzhugh never explained — why, at the last minute, he’d suddenly deemed Seal’s “credibility” insufficient in Arkansas.

Seal may not have intended to show up, anyway. The pressures on him had intensified since he’d agreed to testify against Jorge Ochoa, a cartel leader who was soon to be extradited to the U.S. To prevent that from happening, the cartel had placed a half-million-dollar contract on Seal’s head.

And it worked. On Feb. 19, 1986, a group of Colombian gunmen murdered Seal in the parking lot of a halfway house in Baton Rouge, where a federal judge had ordered Seal to spend nights while on court-imposed probation.

Barely four weeks later, Reagan appeared on national television to explain his opposition to Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. As part of that explanation, the president held up one of Seal’s photographs from inside the C-123. The image was grainy but Reagan said that it showed officials of Nicaragua’s Communist government loading cocaine onto a plane that was headed to the United States.

Reagan never mentioned Seal, and the photo’s authenticity was soon challenged. Nevertheless, that televised moment captured the whirlwind into which Seal flew after his move to Arkansas: the intersection of drugs, Central American politics, the DEA, the CIA and the U.S. president.

We might never have known about any of that except for what happened on Oct. 5, 1986, less than eight months after Seal’s murder. The C-123 cargo plane he’d kept at the airport at Mena was once again flying over Central America when a Nicaraguan soldier shot it down. Papers found with the downed aircraft linked it to members of Reagan’s White House staff and with that, the political upheaval known as the Iran-Contra scandal burst into world news. Questions about the plane led to questions about Seal, and, inevitably, some of the fallout reached Hutchinson. The former U.S. attorney had lost his initial race for Congress, and by 1996, when he was running again, many Arkansans were trying to sort out his connection to Seal.

When someone at a campaign appearance asked the candidate if there’d been a cover-up at Mena, Hutchinson replied: “All I can tell you is I started the investigation. I pursued the investigation, and I was called to run for office. And after that I was out of the loop.” Hutchinson won his 1996 congressional race and two subsequent elections. He resigned from Congress in 2001 to accept an appointment by President George W. Bush as head of the DEA.

After a subsequent appointment at the Department of Homeland Security, Hutchinson returned to Arkansas, where he became the state’s governor in 2015.

Soon after taking office, Hutchinson installed veteran DEA agent Bill Bryant as head of the State Police. I came along a few months later, asking to see the agency’s file on Seal. When I learned how much less was available than reportedly had been in the past, I wrote to Hutchinson, hoping to ask about the difference, but he did not respond.

Bill Clinton, who was governor throughout Seal’s time at Mena, has also had little to say about the smuggler’s presence. While governor, Clinton was drawn uncomfortably close to questions relating to cocaine after police arrested his half-brother, Roger Clinton, on charges of distributing cocaine, and Roger Clinton reported that he’d gotten the drug from his boss, Dan Lasater, a Little Rock bond trader and financial supporter of Clinton.

Seal was dead by late 1986, when Lasater was indicted, but the FBI’s investigation of Lasater produced at least one intriguing connection between the two. Billy Earle Jr. had been in the co-pilot’s seat on that night in December 1983 when Seal flew into Mena to have an extra fuel tank installed. The following year, when Earle was arrested in Louisiana, Welch went there to interview him.

Earle told Welch that immediately after “the new plumbing” was installed, Seal planned to fly “to a place in southern Colombia, bordering Peru, and pick up 200 kilos of cocaine.” He said the trip was for an “operation to be staged out of Carver Ranch in Belize.” But, Earle said, that plan had fallen through.

In the fall of 1986, when FBI agents were investigating Dan Lasater, they questioned his personal pilot. That man reported that he had flown Lasater and his business partner, Patsy Thomasson, “to Belize to look at a horse farm that was for sale by a Roy Carver.” He said that flight had taken place on Feb. 8, 1984, within weeks of the aborted trip Seal had reportedly planned to the same location. Lasater and Roger Clinton both pleaded guilty to drug charges and served time in prison. After Bill Clinton’s election as president, he placed Thomasson in charge of the White House Office of Administration.

Though accusations abound, no link has ever been established between Clinton and Seal. Still, on the few occasions when the smuggler’s name has come up, Clinton has sounded as “out of the loop” as Hutchinson.

At one point, while Clinton was governor, the local prosecuting attorney for Mena had attempted to act where U.S. attorneys Hutchinson and Fitzhugh had not. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Charles E. Black wanted to impanel a state grand jury to consider evidence that people at Rich Mountain Aviation had abetted Seal’s drug-trafficking operation. Realizing that such a case would cost more than his district could afford, Black had asked the governor’s office for a grant of $25,000. But Black said he never received a response.

Bill Alexander, one of Arkansas’s long-term Democratic congressmen, supported Black’s idea. Alexander told me that he wrote to Clinton personally, repeating Black’s request and explaining that questions about Seal needed to be “resolved and laid to rest.” But he, too, said that he did not recall receiving a response.

Yet, later on, when a reporter asked Clinton what he had known about Seal, the governor had a somewhat different recollection. He said that, although he had authorized payment of $25,000 to fund the grand jury Black had requested, “Nothing ever came of that.”

On the subject of Seal, the usually astute governor had come across as unusually uninformed. A citizens’ group called the Arkansas Committee suspected that state and federal authorities had agreed to protect Seal in Arkansas. Disturbed by Clinton’s apparent disinterest, members of the group at one point unfurled a 10-foot-long banner at the state Capitol that asked: WHY IS CLINTON PROTECTING BUSH? In 1992, when Clinton and George H.W. Bush opposed each other for president, neither candidate mentioned Seal.

After Clinton’s election as president, when White House correspondent Sarah McClendon asked him what he knew about Mena, he remained adamant but vague as he mischaracterized Black’s investigation. “It was primarily a matter for federal jurisdiction,” he said. “The state really had next to nothing to do with it.

“The local prosecutor did conduct an investigation based on what was in the jurisdiction of state law. The rest of it was under the jurisdiction of the United States attorneys who were appointed successively by previous administrations. We had nothing — zero — to do with it, and everybody who’s ever looked into it knows that.”

Almost a decade after Seal’s death, U.S. Rep. James A. Leach (R-Iowa) took an interest in what one of the people he questioned, CIA Director John Deutch, later described as “allegations of money laundering and other activities” in Mena. As chairman of the House Banking Committee, Leach was well positioned to investigate such claims. He told reporters: “We have more than sufficient documentation that improprieties occurred at Mena. This isn’t a made-up issue. There are grounds to pursue it very seriously.”

In a letter to the DEA, Leach asked the agency to provide all documents relating to “possible ties between activities at Mena Airport and the use of a private airstrip at a similarly remote location near Taos, New Mexico, at a ski resort called Angel Fire” — a resort owned by Lasater. Leach wrote: “Published reports indicate that DEA conducted at least two separate investigations of alleged money laundering and drug trafficking in or around Angel Fire, the first in approximately 1984, and the second in 1988-1989.” He said the second investigation was triggered by allegations from former Angel Fire employees “that the resort was the focal point for ‘a large controlled substance smuggling operation and large-scale money laundering activity.’ ”

TOM CRUISE AS BARRY SEAL: In “American Made,” opening Friday (courtesy Universal Pictures).

Leach added: “The alleged activity at Angel Fire was roughly contemporaneous with the money laundering and narcotics trafficking alleged to have taken place in or around Mena Airport during the period 1982-1986.”

Leach sent congressional investigators to Arkansas. And he asked the U.S. Customs Service what it knew about “the disposition of potentially ill-gotten gains by Seal or his associates,” especially with regard to “a piece of property in Belize known variously as the Cotter, Cutter or Carver Ranch,” because, “Barry Seal allegedly used this property in his narcotics trafficking operations and attempted to buy it in 1983.”

Little more was heard of Leach’s investigation for the next three years. Finally, in 1999, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal inquired about its status. Leach’s spokesman responded that investigators were “putting the finishing touches” on their report.

But that was the last the public heard. The House Banking Committee’s investigation into what Leach called the “improprieties” relating to Mena has never been released.

And my book, “The Mena File?” It was not published, either. I’d completed the manuscript, with hundreds of supporting notes, by this time last year. Lorenzen, who had prepared the index, was pleased. The book was listed in the University of Arkansas Press catalog and for presale on sites such as Amazon.com .

It was time for an attorney to read the manuscript to make sure it contained nothing libelous. This vetting process is standard for books of contemporary nonfiction, especially those involving crimes. Having been through the process with publishers of my other books, I understood the need and was ready. I was also unconcerned, in part because I’d been careful, but also because the most serious allegations — those concerning Rich Mountain Aviation — had already been vetted years ago for a section about Seal in my book, “The Boys on the Tracks.”

But I was in for a shock. Lorenzen told me that his boss, David Stricklin, the ASI’s director, had suddenly expressed some “concerns” about the book. Lorenzen further reported that, while these concerns were legal in nature, Stricklin had said the ASI could not afford to have the manuscript vetted.

Neither the decision nor Lorenzen’s explanation that “we’re just a shoestring press” made sense. From the start, the book was intended to be a solid work of Arkansas history buoyed by a major Hollywood film. What’s more, Random House had already contracted to buy its audio rights and paid an advance.

From a business point of view, the ASI’s position defied logic. I asked Lorenzen if the newly arisen concerns might be political rather than financial, but was told nothing more. Lorenzen proposed rescinding our contract. Seeing no reasonable way forward, I agreed. As I’d written the book without an advance, the deal’s undoing was simple.

By now I’ve had a year to reflect on my experiences in writing about Seal, as well as those of Duncan, Welch, Black, Alexander, members of the Arkansas Committee, and others who’ve tried to shed light on his time in Arkansas. None of us much succeeded.

So I’m glad that at least Hollywood has found Seal’s “true lies” worth exploring. Too many secrets have been kept for too long; too much important history has been hidden, lost or destroyed. Let’s hope that Cruise’s high-powered version of Seal prompts an equally high-powered demand for disclosure of all government records on him, especially after his move to Mena.

Mara Leveritt is author of “The Boys on the Tracks,” “Devil’s Knot” and “Dark Spell.”

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‘american made’: film review.

Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman reteam for 'American Made,' a dark comedy-thriller about pilot Barry Seal, who worked for both the CIA and the Colombian cartel in the 1980s.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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A few decades after Top Gun , career history repeats itself for Tom Cruise with his role as an ace flyboy in American Made . This jaunty, timely but somewhat derivative true-crime comedy-thriller casts the star as a fictionalized version of pilot Barry Seal, a real guy who ran drugs, money and guns between Latin America and the U.S. in the 1980s with backing from the CIA.

Director Doug Liman , reteaming with Cruise in the wake of their commercial and critical success Edge of Tomorrow , applies plenty of stylistic top-spin to the bouncy, chatty screenplay by Gary Spinelli ( Stash House ), compelling Cruise to raise his game and give his amoral deliveryman a sleazier edge than viewers expect from the usually clean-cut icon. That said, this is yet another hyper-competent, boyishly devil-may-care character that offers the actor, famous for his derring-do on set, a chance to do his own stunts and fly a plane; it’s not a role all that far out of the aging megastar’s wheelhouse.

Release date: Sep 29, 2017

The real Barry Seal’s story is just significant enough to have warranted the de facto market testing of previous docudrama treatment (see Doublecrossed ) and a clutch of crime books. And yet what actually happened isn’t so emblazoned on the national consciousness that anyone is likely to nitpick over the details of this depiction, or even know the dark place where the story is ultimately headed. Like Foxcatcher or American Hustle , the core conceit hits that sweet spot for fact-based, journalism-inspired storytelling by being about flamboyant figures who were part of an even bigger, crazier story. (In this case, it’s the Iran-Contra scandal. Arthur L. Liman, the director’s father, was the chief counsel for the Senate investigation in the affair and, per the film’s press notes, questioned Col. Oliver North during the public hearings.)

Kudos are due to Liman and Spinelli (whose future collaborations include upcoming TV series Impulse and sci-fi film Chaos Walking) for honing the script into a reasonably manageable two-hour romp around the Byzantine conspiracy-caper seen through the eyes of Seal. Wisely, they’ve opted not to get too clever with the chronology, and tell the story straight through with only the occasional narrator’s interjection via a videotaped “confession” or home-movie memory from Seal (recorded circa 1985 on a wonderfully ugly VHS rig).

With voiced-over guidance that recalls Ray Liotta’s interjections in GoodFellas , Seal explains how he got into this crazy mess. Back in the ’70s, when you could still smoke in the cockpit and cocktail waitresses would “bang anything in a uniform,” according to a colleague, Seal was a pilot for TWA with a nice little smuggling business on the side, bringing Cuban cigars into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico.

It’s this little criminal chink in his armor of toothy all-American geniality that allows CIA operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson, deliciously Mephistophelian) to get a hold of Seal and turn him into an asset for the agency. Schafer sets him up with his own sweet twin-propeller plane and a fake business and soon he’s flying down to Panama to exchange cash for intelligence reports from a certain Col. Noriega on a regular basis.

Two Dead on a Tom Cruise Movie Shoot: A Plane Crash in Colombia, Lawsuits and a Survivor Speaks Out

Production companies: A Universal Pictures, Cross Creek Pictures presentation in association with Imagine Entertainment of a Brian Grazer production in association with Vendian Entertainment, Quadrant Pictures, Hercules Film Fund Distributor: Universal Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Alejandro Edda, Mauricio Mejía , Caleb Landry Jones, Jesse Plemons, Jayma Mays, Lola Kirke, William Mark McCullough, E. Roger Mitchell, Robert Farrior, Cuyle Carvin Director: Doug Liman Screenwriter: Gary Spinelli Producers: Brian Grazer, Brian Oliver, Doug Davison, Kim Roth, Ray Angelic, Tyler Thompson Executive producers: Paris Latsis, Terry Dougas, Brandt Andersen, Eric Greenfeld, Michael Finley, Michael Bassick, Ray Chen Director of photography: Cesar Charlone Production designer: Dan Weil Costume designer: Jenny Gering Editors: Andrew Mondshein Music: Christophe Beck Music supervisors: Gabe Hilfer, Julianne Jordan Casting: Mindy Marin

Rated R, 115 minutes

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American Made vs. the True Story of Barry Seal

Had barry seal really been a commercial airline pilot for twa.

Yes. Like in the American Made movie, the real Barry Seal earned a living as a commercial airline pilot for several years. He was hired by Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1964 and at age 26 became one of the youngest Captains operating a Boeing 707. He had already been flying planes for nearly half his life, earning his student pilot's license at age 15 and pilot's license at 16. Embracing his entrepreneurial spirit as a teenager, he started a small business flying ads from his airplane. In 1961, he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard and served with the 20th Special Forces Group for six years. -Daily Mail Online Like in the movie, the real Barry Seal was a former TWA pilot.

Was Barry Seal recruited by the CIA while he worked for TWA?

No, in real life, it happened earlier. In the American Made movie, Barry Seal's boredom with piloting commercial flights leads him to perform stunts that cause the oxygen masks to fall and frighten passengers. This draws the attention of the CIA. Operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) approaches Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and tells him, "We need you to deliver stuff for us." The real Barry Seal claimed that he started running covert operations for various government agencies as early as the late 1950s, while he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, well before he became a TWA pilot. Seal said that he started by doing things like flying guns for the CIA to revolution fighters in Cuba in the late 1950s and flying operations for U.S. Army Special Forces in Laos just prior to the Vietnam War. -Daily Mail Online

Did Barry Seal resign as a TWA pilot to carry out covert operations for the CIA?

No. Barry Seal was fired from TWA in 1974 for falsely citing medical leave when he was actually off trafficking weapons. He had been arrested in 1972 by the U.S. Customs Service for trying to fly 1,350 pounds of plastic explosives to anti-Castro Cubans via Mexico. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal

Is Domhnall Gleeson's character, Monty Schafer, based on a real CIA agent?

No. Fact-checking American Made revealed that Monty Schafer is a fictional character created to represent Barry Seal's contacts at the CIA. There is no real-life Monty. Domhnall Gleeson as fictional CIA agent Monty Schafer in American Made .

Did Barry Seal meet Lee Harvey Oswald?

Yes. An interesting fact we learned while researching the true story was that while training for the Civil Air Patrol in Baton Rouge, Barry Seal met President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. - Refinery29

Is Barry Seal's wife in the movie based on a real person?

Yes. However, her real name is Debbie, not Lucy. She is a brunette, not a blond like Sarah Wright's character in the movie. Barry met Debbie while he was on his way to a hearing after he was caught in 1972 trying to smuggle military explosives out of the country. The explosives were supposedly going to anti-Castro Cuban fighters. Debbie, who was 21 at the time, met Barry, 33, while working as a cashier at a restaurant. "He stopped in there and, just like that, he asked me out," Debbie told Daily Mail Online . "He would tell me all these wild stories about the missions he had flown. I was young and it was impressive." They married in 1974. Debbie became Barry's third wife. He had previously been married to Barbara Bottoms (m. 1963-1971) and Lynn Ross (m. 1971-1972).

Was Barry Seal really working for both the CIA and Pablo Escobar in the early 1980s?

The extent of Barry Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s has provided fuel for speculation and conspiracy theories. As author Del Hahn states in his book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal , there is no evidence to support claims that Barry Seal worked for the CIA. Hahn was part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. In his book, he uses case documents and first-person accounts to dispel this idea and other half-truths about Seal. However, some still allege the opposite, that the government turned a blind eye to Seal's drug running in order to use him to deliver weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels. Basically, Seal would fly over the guns and smuggle back drugs on his return trip. It's certainly possible and it's what the movie proposes. Yet, it's also certainly possible that Seal had no involvement with the CIA in the early 1980s at all, given there is nothing to support the claim but rumors. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. In his research for the book, the only confirmed connection Hahn could make between the CIA and Barry Seal was in 1984, after Seal had started working as an informant for the DEA. What is certain is that Barry Seal did work for Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas as a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel and single-handedly had one of the largest impacts on the cocaine epidemic in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Seal made an estimated $60 million off smuggling drugs into the country and became one of the richest people in America. Executing secret missions for the government in the movie might add a sort of patriotism and redeeming quality to his character, but in real life Barry Seal was a drug smuggler first and foremost. That aspect of who he was has never been disputed. Del Hahn's book "Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal" attempts to dispel the rumors and half-truths associated with Barry Seal, including his work for the CIA.

What was the Iran-Contra affair?

As stated in the previous question, there is no strong evidence to confirm that Barry Seal was working with the CIA prior to becoming an informant after his arrest in 1983. Yet, some believe that Seal was working for the CIA in the 1980s to fly guns and money to Nicaraguan rebels, a detail that the movie embraces. During the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, the U.S. plotted to secretly help the rebels (Contras) overthrow Nicaragua's Communist Sandinista government. Money from the sale of weapons to Iran was used to help fund the rebels in Nicaragua. However, the U.S. needed a way to covertly get the funds and weapons to the rebels. Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. -Daily Mail Online

When did Barry Seal begin smuggling drugs?

The movie proposes that Barry Seal's first foray into smuggling drugs happened in 1980 after he was kidnapped while refueling his plane in Colombia. In the film, his abductors take him to a secret airstrip in the Colombian jungle where three businessmen, including Pablo Escobar, make him an offer he can't pass up. Upset that he has lost his pension and healthcare at TWA, he embraces the idea of making $2,000 per kilo of cocaine smuggled into the United States. This doesn't add up with the American Made true story. According to The Independent , Barry's widow, Deborah Seal, says that he began smuggling drugs in 1975, first focusing mainly on marijuana. Seal's Drug Enforcement Administration file also supports this, noting that he was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976, then adding cocaine to his resume in 1978.

How did Barry Seal become a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel?

In the movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) starts working for the Medellín Cartel after they abduct him while he is refueling his plane and then make him an offer he can't refuse. In real life, his first encounter with the Medellín Cartel happened less dramatically. After being caught in Honduras with 40 kilograms of cocaine in 1979, Barry spent nine months in a Honduran jail. While there, he had a chance meeting with Jorge Ochoa's New Orleans business manager. The Ochoa Family, along with Pablo Escobar and others, were the founders of the Medellín Cartel. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. -Daily Mail Online This undercover photo taken from a secret camera mounted in Barry Seal's plane shows Pablo Escobar (left) and Barry Seal (right) on a tarmac in Nicaragua, where drugs were loaded onto Seal's plane.

Did Barry Seal deal directly with Pablo Escobar and the other leaders of Colombia's Medellín Cartel?

No. According to Del Hahn's book Smuggler's End , Barry Seal was not chummy with the cartel bosses. He didn't meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, after his arrest when he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation.

Did Barry Seal have three children?

No. According to TIME , in real life, he had five children and was married three times. The real Barry Seal and his wife Debbie had three children (Aaron, Dean and Christina). Barry also had a daughter and a son not shown in the movie, Lisa and Alder, with his first wife Barbara Bottoms.

Did Barry Seal really crash land a plane full of cocaine in a suburban neighborhood?

No. In the American Made movie , Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) crash lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood in an effort to escape the DEA who ordered him to land. Barry emerges from the plane covered in cocaine. He hands wads of cash to a kid on a bike, telling the boy, "You never saw me." The memorable scene never happened in real life. No evidence has been found to support that Barry Seal ever crash landed a plane in a suburban neighborhood, a story that surely would have made the news.

Did Barry really move his operation from Louisiana to Arkansas?

Yes. Barry Seal's smuggling operation began in Louisiana, and like in the American Made movie, he sometimes pushed packed duffel bags full of drugs out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be collected by associates on the ground. A Baton Rouge, Louisiana native, Barry Seal was eventually forced to move his drug smuggling operation after he drew the attention of Louisiana authorities. He relocated to a small regional airport in Mena, Arkansas, which had a population of only 5,000. He carried out his smuggling operation under the nose of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. -TIME

How much money did Barry make smuggling drugs into the U.S.?

As a drug smuggler for Colombia's Medellín Cartel, Barry Seal earned as much as $500,000 per flight smuggling cocaine into the United States. By 1983, his earnings totaled $60 million, making him one of the wealthiest people in America. In total, he had illegally imported $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs and an estimated 56 tons of cocaine into the U.S., making over 100 flights. -Daily Mail Online By 1983, Barry Seal had made $60 million flying illegal drugs into the U.S.

Why was the movie's title changed from Mena to American Made ?

"Mena" refers to the small town in Arkansas where Barry Seal moved his operation, smuggling in drugs to a clandestine airfield under the nose of then-Governor Bill Clinton. Per The Hollywood Reporter , the movie's title was changed to put less emphasis on the Arkansas connection, including the possibility that Bill Clinton was aware of what was going on.

Did Barry Seal's wife know that he was a drug smuggler?

Debbie Seal insists that she was unaware of what her husband was up to. She says that she thought he was an airplane broker and also that he rented out old anti-aircraft lighting for various promotional events. Her character in the American Made movie is much more aware and suspicious of her husband's activities, stating that she flat out doesn't trust him, which is the opposite of Seal's real-life wife. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. "He would tell me, 'I'm going to such and such places,' and I wouldn't see him for days. I never saw drugs, that's for sure." -Daily Mail Online

Did the zero-gravity love scene really happen?

No. The scene was actually inspired by something that happened while director Doug Liman and Tom Cruise were training for the movie. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," Liman told Vulture . "He put the airplane into a parabolic arc and pinned me against the ceiling, and right in that moment, I had this inspiration. ... Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc and they got pinned against the ceiling?" The movie's zero-g love scene never happened.

Did the cartel really kill Barry Seal's brother-in-law with a car bomb?

No. In the movie, Lucy's brother JB (Caleb Landry Jones) steals money from Barry (Tom Cruise). He carries it around and begins spending it, which attracts the attention of the local authorities. The cartel tells Barry that they'll deal with JB, a suggestion that Barry opposes. Soon after, JB is killed by a car bomb. JB is fictional. The real Barry Seal never had a brother-in-law who was killed by a car bomb.

Is American Made a biopic?

No. "You know, we're not making a biopic," said director Doug Liman. "Tom Cruise doesn't look like Barry Seal. His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." The movie's loose interpretation of the truth is echoed in the trailer when a voice-over by Tom Cruise as Barry Seal tells us that only "some of this sh*t really happened." Liman has referred to the film as "a fun lie based on a true story" ( TIME ). American Made starring Tom Cruise was inspired by various tales about Barry Seal, but the film is not a biopic.

Was Barry Seal as likable as Tom Cruise's American Made character?

Yes, at least according to his wife and others who knew him. "The DEA agents who worked with Barry loved him," said director Doug Liman. "We're talking about one of the largest drug smugglers in America, and these agents loved him." While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. When asked how, he replied, "Oh, Barry stole an airplane from me. He took it out for a test flight and never came back." It turns out Barry flew the plane all the way back to the United States. The man said that despite the incident, he was still very fond of Barry. -Vulture.com Barry Seal was a ballsy and confident risk taker, who rarely acknowledged the possibility of failure, and that's just how Tom Cruise portrays him in the American Made movie. According to author Del Hahn, who wrote the book Smuggler's End , next to Barry's yearbook photo was the description, "Full of fun, full of folly" ( TIME ). Hahn told Vice that Barry was likable but "not as smart and clever as he thought he was."

Does Tom Cruise look like Barry Seal?

No. Fact-checking American Made immediately revealed that Tom Cruise looks nothing like the real Barry Seal, who weighed around 280lbs and was nicknamed "El Gordo" (The Fat Man) by his bosses. -Daily Mail Online The real Barry Seal (left and inset) and actor Tom Cruise (right) look nothing alike.

How was Barry Seal caught?

In researching the American Made true story, we learned that Barry Seal was arrested by customs officers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1983 as he tried to smuggle 200,000 units of Quaalude, a recreational drug, into the country. The DEA had been onto him for a long time. If he had in fact been working for the CIA at the time, his connections didn't get him off the hook.

Did Barry Seal offer to become a federal informant to avoid prison time?

Yes. In an effort to reduce or altogether avoid his 10-year prison sentence, Seal first tried to make a deal with a U.S. attorney, volunteering to give up information on the Ochoa family, but the deal was rejected. He then was able to get a meeting with Vice President George H.W. Bush's anti-drug task force in hopes of convincing them of his value as an informant. They referred him to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA eventually took him up on his offer because of his knowledge and connections to the cartel. Seal became a federal informant in March 1984. His cooperation led to many convictions, as well as indictments against Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa, two of the founding members of the Medellín Cartel. Ochoa was arrested in Spain on a U.S. warrant, but due to pressure from the cartel was never extradited to the U.S. -Court Documents (STATE of Louisiana v. Miguel VELEZ, Bernardo Vasquez, and Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz)

As an informant, did Barry Seal really bring back photos and drugs as part of his undercover work?

Yes. Like in the American Made movie, Barry Seal was allowed to fly out of the country and return with illegal drugs that the feds made sure never reached their targets. Concurrently, they had to make sure not to raise the suspicions of the ruthless Colombian drug lords. Undercover cameras installed on Seal's plane captured photos on the tarmac of a Nicaraguan airport. Images like the one earlier on this page show Medellín Cartel boss Pablo Escobar with Sandinista government officials and soldiers, who were loading cocaine onto Seal's plane, nicknamed the Fat Lady. Other photos like the one below show Federico Vaughan (center, striped shirt), a man that Seal claimed was a top aide of Tomas Borge, the Sandinista Minister of the Interior. The White House saw the pictures as proof of the communist Sandinista government's corruption and believed that the photos would help to convince the public of the need to support and arm the rebels (Contras) in Nicaragua. Later, after Seal's cover was suspiciously blown, President Reagan used the photo shown below in a 1986 television address to the nation . -The Independent President Ronald Reagan referenced this photo in a 1986 address to the nation. At center in the striped shirt helping to load drugs onto Seal's plane is Federico Vaughan, believed to be an aide to the Interior Minister of Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

Did Col. Oliver North inadvertently get Barry Seal killed?

Not likely. No other name is perhaps more associated with the Iran-Contra affair than Oliver North, but his involvement in exposing Barry Seal's mission and blowing his cover is unknown and entirely speculation. A July 17, 1984 front-page Washington Times article by Edmund Jacoby described a link between Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the Medellín drug cartel. Jacoby mentioned Seal's mission as evidence, which effectively outed Seal as a government agent. When asked who his source was, Jacoby implied that it was "an aide in the White House" and that Oliver North had the most motivation to release the information. Despite the movie attempting to pin it on North, Jacoby later said that North was not his source and that it was a deceased Special Forces and CIA guy named Ted Lunger, who at the time worked as a staff member for Representative Dan Daniel. "I can state absolutely that Oliver North had nothing to do with my story as far as I knew, or as far as I know today," said Jacoby. Regardless, Jacoby's article led to the abandonment of the final piece of Barry Seal's undercover operation. Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas were going to be arrested at a celebration of Seal's successful cocaine transport. The arrests never happened since Seal's cover was blown. -Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal

Did the cartel put a contract out on Barry Seal?

Yes. "One day Barry came in and said there was a contract on him - half a million dead, a million alive," says widow Debbie Seal. "He thought we had more time. I guess he also thought Colombians would stick out like a sore thumb in Louisiana and they wouldn't come here." It is believed that the Colombians put a hit out on Barry after they learned he was going to help the feds with the extradition of Jorge Ochoa from Spain, one of the heads of the Medellín Cartel. Barry and his wife talked about going into witness protection, but like in the movie, he decided against it. -Daily Mail Online

Why wasn't Barry Seal forced into witness protection?

Author Del Hahn, a former FBI agent who wrote the book about Seal titled Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal , told Vice , "Seal thought he was smarter and cleverer than the Ochoas," who are one of the founding families of the Medellín Cartel. He wasn't. Barry Seal's widow, Debbie Seal, and others have wondered why the government didn't do more to protect Seal, whether he wanted the protection or not. Conspiracy theorists have gone as far as suggesting that the government ordered the hit on Seal, not the cartel, a suggestion that has never been supported by any proof.

Was Barry Seal assassinated in a parking lot?

Yes. The assassination happened on February 19, 1986 in the parking lot in front of the Salvation Army building on Airline Highway (U.S. 61) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As part of his reduced sentence, the judge had ordered Barry to spend his nights, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., at a Salvation Army halfway house for six months. Barry arrived that evening at approximately 6 p.m. and backed his white Cadillac into a parking space. He was unaware that a Colombian assassin was hiding behind one of the donation drop boxes. As Barry opened the driver's side door to get out of the car, the gunman rushed from behind the drop box and fired a .45 caliber Mac-10 machine gun, hitting Barry in the head and body several times. The gunman hurried into a waiting Buick, which sped away. The gunman was later identified as Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz. Miguel Velez was the man driving the getaway car. Three Colombians supposedly sent by the Ochoas, including Cruz and Velez, were later arrested at the airport. They were all sentenced to life in prison. -Court Documents The 2016 Bryan Cranston movie The Infiltrator also depicts Barry Seal's assassination, but it is historically inaccurate. That film finds Seal (portrayed by Michael Paré) being assassinated in a motorcycle drive-by shooting while he is driving and Robert Mazur (Cranston) is his passenger.

Does director Doug Liman have ties to the true story?

Yes. While exploring the real-life story behind the movie, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. Arthur, the chief council, investigated the CIA and questioned Col. Oliver North, who is depicted in American Made . Doug Liman had previously modeled Chris Cooper's villain in The Bourne Identity after North, which reveals Liman's feelings about the controversial figure North. -Vulture.com

Did Tom Cruise do all of his own flying in the movie?

Yes. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself ( Vulture.com ). Tom Cruise got his pilot's license in 1994. "I fly airplanes. I'm a multi-engine, instrument-rated commercial pilot," Cruise said in a Wired interview. "Doug and I are both aviators, so we both love to fly."

How does Barry Seal's family feel about the movie?

Not all of Barry Seal's heirs were happy with the making of the movie. Lisa Seal Frigon, Barry's daughter from his first marriage, sued Universal, claiming that the studio should have purchased Barry's life rights from her, not his third wife Deborah who they paid $350,000. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot.

Were two pilots killed during the making of American Made ?

Yes. Just prior to the movie's release, news broke that the family of deceased stunt pilot Alan Purwin was suing American Made 's producers for wrongful death. Purwin was a passenger in a plane that went down, killing both Purwin and Venezuelan pilot Carlos Berl. The accident didn't happen during filming. The lawsuit claims that the pilots were overworked and that the crash happened after a 12-hour workday. In court documents, the family alleged that "lapses in planning, coordinating, scheduling, and flight safety" contributed to the fatal crash in the mountains of Colombia. They also claimed that the pilot who died lacked the necessary experience for the flight. -Good Morning America

Watch an interview with the real Barry Seal where he discusses his undercover mission, and listen to President Ronald Reagan talk about the photos Seal obtained on the mission. Also, view a news story about Barry Seal's death.

Tom Cruise's 'American Made' Almost Had A Scene Featuring Bill Clinton Getting A Lap Dance

An actor playing a young version of former President George W. Bush has a brief cameo appearance in American Made , the newest film from director Doug Liman ( The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow ), but the filmmaker's drug smuggling period piece very nearly included an appearance from another former president. According to a new report, Bill Clinton was nearly depicted getting a lap dance in an Arkansas strip club. The Tom Cruise movie establishes a small Arkansas city as a hub of the Columbian drug trade, and Clinton was the state's governor at the time.

In the movie, Cruise plays a real-life civilian pilot named Barry Seal was was recruited by the CIA to run drugs and guns into the country so the US could arming the Contras, and even train them on our own turf. The Hollywood Reporter describes a scene in which Seal comes up with the idea to list the Arkansas governor for help in which we see Clinton receiving a lap dance, but explains that the film's financiers demanded that it be cut "to keep the film from being political." Apparently the movie is "based on the one conspiracy theory that implicates both Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in a massive operation that involved cocaine smuggling, money laundering and illegal arms exporting," and yet another deleted scene would have pegged the elder Bush (then the Vice President) as being directly involved in the illegal scheme.

While a young George W. Bush makes a quick comment to Seal's character in person, Clinton is actually referenced as well; the film's version of the Arkansas assistant attorney general ( Jayma Mays ) talks to him on the phone at one point.

American Made has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes as I write this, which THR says is one of the highest scores of Cruise's entire career. I can't understand why: I saw the movie earlier this week and it left zero impact on me. I was baffled at why Cruise and Liman felt so strongly that they had to tell this particular story, and putting that aside, I found the movie to be frustratingly shallow and not even fascinating from a stylistic perspective (an area in which Liman typically excels). Cruise seems to be having some fun with the part, but there's nothing there , and I just couldn't shake the thought that even though I'd never seen this story from Barry Seal's perspective, the film felt like a checklist of tons of Medellin movies and TV shows we've seen over the years. If you go see the movie this weekend, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

The only angle left to cover is THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE version about the cheese-smuggling mice that live in Pablo Escobar's house. — Ben Pearson (@benpears) September 26, 2017

12 Movies Filmed in Arkansas

May 5, 2021

Arkansas boasts a number of unique facts. Did you know the state considers itself the world capital of quartz, spinach, and folk music? Or that the state is the home to the only active diamond mine in the United States? With so many things to be proud of, Arkansas has an even bigger reason to brag: film production.

Arkansas offers a wide variety of scenery, from picturesque rural scenes to bustling metropolises. No wonder it is one of the most chosen locations to film movies. Beginning in 1926 with the filming of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to the iconic blockbuster, “Sling Blade”. The film, featuring and created by Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton, received an Academy Award and set Arkansas as one of the top filming destinations in the United States.

With such an impressive filmography, the state has seen filming locations become tourist destinations as movie fans flock to where their favorite films were made. Locations from “Sling Blade”, such as Gary’s Whopper Burger, the family home, and the Arkansas Health Center, have become places remembered for their cinematic cameos.

Not only is the state the site of many major films, but also several television shows and made for TV movies. Most recently, Elizabethtown (2005) took to the state to finish up filming.

The “Natural State” also offers a wide variety of scenery, what with over 600,000 acres of lakes, and picturesque rural areas like the Coastal Plains and Highlands to bustling metropolises like Little Rock and Fayetteville.

Not to mention that the 25th state has some historic significance and connections, being as though it’s the birthplace of such important figures like musician Johnny Cash and former President Bill Clinton. It’s also the home headquarters for the retail giant, Walmart.

With all this and so much more, it’s no wonder that time and again Arkansas is chosen by filmmakers as a perfect location to shoot a variety of different types of movies and scenes.

For some flicks, it makes logical sense that they were shot in Arkansas, either because the storyline is set there at some point or because the story being told actually happened there. For these, you’d actually be more surprised to hear that they weren’t filmed in Arkansas.

Sling Blade (1996)

1996’s Sling Blade was created by Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton. Set in Arkansas and filmed in Benton, many of its locations, such as Gary’s Whopper Burger, the family home, and the Arkansas Health Center, have become tourist destination stops for photos.

Gone With The Wind (1939)

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And Sling Blade isn’t the only movie with still-standing remnants from its filming days. Gone with the Wind fans can catch a view of the old mill featured in the film’s intro in North Little Rock. It is actually the only structure from the 1939 film that hasn’t been destroyed in the past 80 or so years.

3 h 53 min | 13+

Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976 & 2014)

It seems pretty logical that, if at all possible, a movie based on a true story was shot where it happened. Both versions of The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976 and 2014), based on the 1946 “Moonlight Murders” in Texarkana, were shot, for the most part, in Arkansas.

1 h 30 min | R

Texan-born and bred Matthew McConaughey starred as a fugitive on the run in the 2012 drama Mud, which was set in Arkansas. You’ll find scenes throughout that were shot in Dumas, Lake Village, De Witt, Crocketts Bluff, and Stuttgart.

2 h 10 min | PG-13

Walk the Line (2005)

This autobiographical film depicting the music and romance of Johnny Cash and June Carter. The movie received five Oscar nominations with Reese Witherspoon actually taking the much-coveted statue home with her. Cash was raised in Arkansas, and there were scenes filmed in his real hometown of Dyess as well as Helena.

2 h 15 min | PG-13

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Based upon a 1953 short story entitled “Your Arkansas Traveler”, Andy Griffith had his first movie role as Lonesome Rhodes in 1957’s A Face in the Crowd. Parts of the movie were set in northeast Arkansas. As for filming, that took place in several places across the United States, such New York, Memphis, and even Piggott.

2 h 5 min | 13+

Borat (2009)

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Although we had our second dose of Borat and his wild antics, don’t forget about one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s other alter egos, Bruno, the homosexual Austrian fashion journalist. The 2009 movie shot a few scenes in Arkansas, the most famously talked about at a bar in Fort Smith where a real-life riot started.

1 h 23 min | R

Come Early Morning (2006)

Ashley Judd starred in this film that had scenes filmed in Little Rock, Pulaski Heights, and North Little Rock. Like Billy Bob Thornton, actress-turned-director Joey Lauren Adams, best known for her roles in many of Kevin Smith’s productions, grew up in Arkansas.

The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

Any movie about the legendary “Fouke Monster” should be filmed in Arkansas, of course. This horror docudrama about the famed creature who has been terrorizing residents in Arkansas all the way back to the 1940s is no exception to this rule. A remastered version of the movie was actually just released in 2019.

And then there are some films that you might be surprised to learn had scenes from Arkansas. Whether they were set somewhere else or the filmmakers did a thorough job masking Arkansas, some of these might be a bit surprising to learn about.

1 h 26 min | G

The Firm (1993)

Based upon the 1991 John Grisham book, this movie starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman remains, to date, to be the highest-grossing Grisham book film adaptation. While the film and book are set in Tennessee, some scenes were shot in Marion. Grisham is actually an Arkansan himself, hailing from Jonesboro.

2 h 34 min | R

Biloxi Blues (1988)

When this movie hit the box office, Matthew Broderick was still relatively new to Hollywood, as this was only his eighth movie (he’s passed 50 now). The comedy-drama from Neil Simon about coming of age during basic training was set in Biloxi, but the entire movie was actually filmed in Van Buren, Fort Smith, Barling, and Fort Chaffee.

1 h 47 min | PG-13

Great Balls of Fire (1989)

Starring Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder, this movie retells the rise and fall of entertainer Jerry Lee Lewis, who up until his controversial marriage in 1958 was poised to overtake even Elvis Presley’s notoriety. Scenes were shot in both Marion and West Memphis, although the story was set elsewhere in the south.

With such an awesome history and so much to offer filmmakers, Arkansas will continue to be one of the top filming destinations in the United States.

Movies filmed in Arizona | Movies filmed in California

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‘American Made’ - The True Story Behind the Tom Cruise Film

Tom Cruise's dedication to his craft is best known, often risking his own life for stunning action sequences, much like the characters he portrays.
American Made is based on the life of Barry Seal, a real American pilot involved in smuggling activities and recruited by the CIA for top-secret missions.
While the film includes elements from Seal's life, certain segments were sensationalized for entertainment purposes, making it a "fun lie based on a true story."

Between Ethan Hunt, Jack Reacher, and Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise has played more than a few wild characters whose lives are completely ridiculous. Cruise’s dedication to his craft is perhaps his best-known attribute, as he has often risked his own life for the sake of creating a stunning action sequence. Perhaps Cruise looks for roles that say something about his own personality; his characters often have the same cocky charm and unflinching bravery that he does. It only made sense that Cruise would play the real American pilot Barry Seal in American Made , as Seal was just as much of a character in real life. Although the 2017 biopic included many of Seal’s real adventures, the film only scratches the surface of what really happened.

American Made

The 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 Caleb Landry Jones, Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons

Runtime 115 minutes

Main Genre Action

Genres Comedy, Action, Crime

Studio Universal Pictures

What Is ‘American Made’ About?

American Made explores how the Louisiana commercial TWA pilot Barry Seal was recruited by the enigmatic CIA case officer Monty Schafer ( Domhnall Gleeson ), who discovered Seal’s illegal practice of smuggling Cuban cigars to Canada. While Seal claims that this is a common practice among commercial pilots, he realizes that any evidence of criminal activity on his part could cost him his job. To Seal’s surprise, Schafer isn’t there to catch Seal in action, but to recruit him for a top-secret mission. The CIA had taken note of Seal’s abilities; his adept flying skills make him virtually undetectable , and have made him into one of the most lucrative smugglers in the air. To waste Seal’s skills would be a disservice; Schafer wants Seal to help the CIA perform a series of top-secret reconnaissance missions in Central America as they observe the ongoing cartel war.

Seal agrees, and begins using the CIA’s retrofitted twin-engine Piper Smith Aerostar 600 to fly throughout Central America, taking photos of the ongoing conflict. Although Seal initially tells his wife Lucy ( Sarah Wright ) that his trips are nothing more than a series of routine flights for TWA, she quickly realizes that the cash that he is bringing home is not befitting of a standard commercial pilot. Seal has a knack for adventure, and doesn’t mind taking a few risky missions if it’s on the government’s watch. However, he begins to take on more dangerous assignments once Schafer asks him to serve as a commissary between the United States intelligence services and General Manuel Noriega, the authoritarian dictator that ruled Panama with an iron fist. While a standard CIA officer may have had trouble connecting with Noriega, Seal’s unofficial status made the Central American leaders less suspicious . Seal finds that he is in somewhat of a middle ground between the two parties; he isn’t technically a spy or a criminal.

The 10 Most Underrated Tom Cruise Movies, Ranked

Seal soon learns that playing both sides can be even more lucrative than his initial assignment. After returning from a surveillance mission, the Medellin Cartel recruits Seal to smuggle cocaine back into the United States. Instead of landing in official airports where he could be intercepted by U.S. officials, Seal chooses to dump his cargo outside in the Louisiana countryside. While the CIA begins to turn a blind eye to Seal’s activities due to their previous agreement, the DEA does not have any patience for him . Seal is tracked down by DEA and FBI agents as he continues to serve as an emissary for various cartel leaders. The situation grows dangerous when Seal becomes caught within the warring factions he represents. His eccentric brother-in-law JB ( Caleb Landry Jones ) is killed by a carb bomb planted by the Medellin Cartel after his reckless spending gains the attention of the FBI.

While Seal is initially caught by the FBI, he’s able to use his connections with central intelligence to broker a deal with The White House. Seal knows too many secrets about the country’s overseas activities and intervention in the drug war that he holds a surprising amount of leverage. However, Seal ended up paying the price for JB’s recklessness. After photos of Seal are released by the White House as propaganda, the CIA shuts down their convert program and ends up leaving Seal out to dry. Seal is convicted and sentenced for his crimes, but only ends up doing community service. Ironically, jail may have actually protected him, a s Seal lives his last few days on the run . He continues moving from motel to motel as he avoids detection by the CIA and cartel. A car bomb kills Seal, but the CIA declines to make any official comments about his actions; Schafer actually ends up getting a promotion for the initial pitch he had made to Seal.

How Much of ‘American Made’ Is True?

While the events of American Made are based on Seal’s actual life, certain segments of the story were sensationalized for the sake of making an entertaining film. Director Doug Liman , who previously helmed Cruise in the 2014 science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow , admitted that the film is “a fun lie based on a true story.” American Made may have been one of Cruise’s best films in recent years, but it is not intended (or pretending to be) an entirely factual account of what actually happened to Seal.

Certain elements of the film are true; the real Seal did obtain his pilot’s license by the time that he was a teenager, and used his connections to the cartels and CIA to help negotiate his way out of a prison sentence with the DEA . Seal’s exact deal with the CIA is largely contested, as many details surrounding his actual assignments remain classified. Seal’s assassination in 1968 by two Columbian hitmen was observed by many witnesses. While reports indicate that Seal’s personality was indeed as colorful as Cruise made it out to be, the film’s notion that he was friendly with the Central American drug lords is largely fictional. Similarly, the real Seal did marry a woman named Lucy, but most elements of their relationship were dramatized for the sake of the film.

American Made is one of Cruise’s stronger efforts in recent years. While it’s great to see him reprise his role as Ethan Hunt and continue his legacy as the greatest action star of the generation, Cruise is often a much better actor than he is given credit for. It’s easy to forget that one of his breakthrough roles was in Oliver Stone ’s biopic Born on the Fourth of July . It’s interesting to see Cruise strip away his persona to play a real person, but any notion that American Made is a “realistic” depiction of Seal’s life is entirely preposterous.

American Made is now available to rent or buy on Prime Video.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO

‘American Made’ - The True Story Behind the Tom Cruise Film

This Tom Cruise Movie Missed the Target at the Box Office — But Its Hitting the Bullseye on Netflix

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The Big Picture

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning has found success on Netflix after struggling to outdo its hefty budget at the box office.
Despite its box office woes, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike.
The shift towards digital consumption has given the film a second chance to shine and attract new fans.

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt might be known for pulling off the impossible, but the latest mission didn't quite skyrocket at the box office. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning , co-written and directed by franchise veteran Christopher McQuarrie , initially seemed like it couldn't dodge the box office bullet. But much like Ethan Hunt escaping an exploding Kremlin, the seventh installment of this adrenaline-fueled saga has found a new avenue for victory: Netflix.

Nearly a year after its theatrical release, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning has surged back into the spotlight, climbing Netflix's Global Top 10 chart for the week of June 10-16. With 5.6 million views and a staggering 15.3 million hours clocked in, it secured the third spot, nestled comfortably behind Four Brothers and Hit Man . While it isn't available on Netflix in the United States — where it continues its mission on Paramount+ and MGM+ — the international Netflix audience has embraced Ethan Hunt's latest escapade.

Despite garnering a hefty $567 million worldwide, Dead Reckoning faced an unexpected challenge that even Ethan Hunt might struggle with: the double whammy of Barbie and Oppenheimer (affectionately dubbed "Barbenheimer") releasing the following weekend. The simultaneous drop of these cinematic heavyweights overshadowed what was supposed to be a dominating performance for the IMF crew.

How Good Is 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning'?

Critics and audiences alike hailed Dead Reckoning as one of the franchise's finest, boasting a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 94% audience rating . These accolades placed it just a notch below the revered Fallout , but the $291 million production budget, which reached such a height due to COVID constraints , demanded more than just applause. To break even, the film needed to rake in $582-727 million — a mission made nearly impossible by pandemic-induced delays and stiff competition.

Though the theatrical run didn't hit the expected highs, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning is doing what Ethan Hunt does best : adapting and overcoming. Its resurgence on Netflix isn't just a testament to its lasting appeal but also a reminder of the shifting landscapes of film consumption. With audiences now binge-watching Hunt's fight against the rogue AI known as the Entity, the film is experiencing a renaissance.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning may have stumbled at the box office, but its digital success underscores a vital truth in today’s entertainment world: the game isn’t over when the credits roll on opening weekend. With its gripping action sequences and edge-of-your-seat plot twists, it’s no wonder fans are flocking to Netflix to catch Ethan Hunt in action once more. Stay tuned to Collider for more. International fans can catch the film on Netflix and U.S. readers can head over to Paramount+ .

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

Watch on Netflix

Screen Rant

Tom cruise approved mission: impossible footage for action movie led by 94-year-old star.

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This 2024 Movie Is Repeating Jason Statham's $152 Million Action Hit With 1 Brilliant Twist

Action movie starring 94-year-old june squibb exposes a hollywood problem that must stop, the mark wahlberg movie that secretly remade a classic john wayne western.

Thelma stars June Squibb in her first leading role, showcasing her dramatic and humorous range in an unconventional action hero role.
Director Josh Margolin received approval from Tom Cruise to use Mission: Impossible footage, adding depth to the comedy.
Thelma explores issues faced by older adults with clever humor, confronting mortality without oversimplifying it, earning high praise.

Tom Cruise approved the use of Mission: Impossible footage in Thelma , with director Josh Margolin explaining how he received permission. Thelma stars 94-year-old June Squibb in her first-ever leading role . The 93-year-old character, Thelma Post, seeks revenge and becomes an unlikely action hero after being scammed out of $10,000. Margolin based the character and the story on his own 104-year-old grandmother while having the film explore issues that older adults face in a meaningful and entertaining fashion.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter , Margolin was asked about the action-comedy's references to the Mission: Impossible franchise via clips and images from the films and of Cruise, and whether Margolin needed to receive permission from the star himself. Margolin explains the process behind including these references and how it impacted Thelma 's production. Read his explanation below:

It came during production. We shot two versions of those scenes, one with Tom on [TVs and newspapers] and then one with like a replaceable green box. It was surprisingly smooth. Nicky Weinstock, who’s a producer on the movie, was at the same agency as him and has some pals in common there. We ended up sending the scene in the script to give him a little context and then a clip of the table read. We got his signoff and then we went to Paramount, which I suspect made things a lot easier there.

The Tom Cruise & Mission Impossible References Are Only A Small Part Of What Makes Thelma Great

A great lead performance, strong themes, & an unconventional action hero add to the experience.

With a 99% critical score and 79% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes , Thelma proves that it has more to offer than its Cruise and Mission Impossible references. Squibb's hilarious performance in Thelma is enough to make the film a stellar comedy. Margolin shared with THR that Squibb was the only actor he ever wanted for the role, emphasizing that she reminded him of his grandmother who inspired the story, and that Squibb had the perfect dramatic and humorous range needed for the role.

Squibb also currently voices Nostalgia in Inside Out 2, meaning she has two movies in theaters.

In addition to Squibb's standout performance, Thelma has been well-received for how it handles issues that older adults face . The action-comedy genre enables Thelma to explore these issues through clever humor that doesn't talk down to its characters or to viewers. It confronts difficult topics, including mortality, without oversimplifying and without becoming overly bleak, an approach Margolin is able to master by drawing on his real-life experiences with his grandmother.

One upcoming 2024 action movie takes the premise of Jason Statham's $152 million hit The Beekeeper and makes it even better with an ingenious twist.

The Cruise and Mission: Impossible references aren't the main reason Thelma has a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, but as one of the most recognizable action stars from one of the most well-known action franchises, they serve a purpose as Thelma becomes an action hero in her own story. Margolin revealed that Squibb did as much as she could and more than what was expected of her when it came to Thelma's stunts , including doing all the scooter driving herself, yet another reason to see Thelma while it plays in theaters and when it becomes available to stream.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Thelma (2024)

Thelma is a 2024 comedy film written and directed by Josh Margolin. Thelma Post finds herself duped out of money and more when a scam caller pretends to be her grandson. Unwilling to sit back and let herself be a victim, she sets off into the city to find the perpetrator and take back what is hers.

Best New TV Shows and Movies to Stream for the Week of June 24: 'The Bear,' 'I Am: Celine Dion' and More

Wondering what to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video or Max? We've found the most exciting premieres streaming this week.

With Prime Video , Hulu , Disney+ , Max (formerly HBO Max), Apple TV+ , Paramount+ , Netflix , Peacock , Starz and even more streaming services , there’s no shortage of options when choosing what to binge-watch in your free time. However, sometimes, the sheer amount of great films and television shows available to stream can be overwhelming and lead to aimless scrolling.

Scroll no more! To help you out, we've rounded up the best movies and TV shows to stream this week , including new arrivals, nostalgia-filled favorites, book-to-screen adaptations and more. For the week of June 24 to June 30, 2024, there are several great options you may want to stream, including the season 3 premiere of FX's award-winning show The Bear .

But, that's not all — there are plenty more new movies and note-worthy television shows to look forward to watching in your downtime this week. A Family Affair is a movie coming to streaming this Friday and features a star-studded cast including Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Kathy Bates and Joey King. Celine Dion opens up about her battle with a rare illness that stopped her singing career in a new documentary. Plus, Eva Longoria is set to star in a brand new series on Apple TV.

It's time to make your weekly streaming plans. Here are this week's best TV shows and movies to stream.

ET, CBS, SHOWTIME, Nickelodeon and Paramount + are subsidiaries of Paramount.

A Family Affair

Zara Ford ( Joey King ) is the assistant to the self-absorbed, high-maintenance movie star Chris Cole ( Zac Efron ). Dealing with him is bad enough at work, but things become even more complicated when her mother ( Nicole Kidman ) and Chris begin to have a relationship. Zara doesn't trust the superstar, but could the feelings between him and her mom be real? Find out when A Family Affair premieres on Netflix on June 28.

Watch on Netflix

I Am: Celine Dion

Celine Dion 's voice was her identity. Not only did she have chart-topping songs and spectacular concerts, but her iconic singing voice awed crowds without any of the extras. In 2022, Dion shared that she had developed a rare neurological condition called Stiff Person Syndrome which took her voice away from her. (Dion spoke about this diagnosis in an interview with Koda Hotb .) Now fans can see even more about her journey with the illness in a new, intimate documentary called I Am: Celine Dion, premiering on Prime Video on June 25.

Watch on Prime Video

The Bear (Season 3)

FX's Emmy-winning series The Bear is back for a third season. Tensions are higher than ever in the kitchen as Carmy ( Jeremy Allen White ) pushes his cousin ( Ebon Moss-Bachrach ), lead chef ( Ayo Edebiri ) and the rest of the kitchen staff to a new level to stay at their elite status. Will they be able to handle the heat? Find out when you binge the entire series that drops to Hulu on Thursday, June 27.

Watch on Hulu

Land of Women (Season 1)

Inspired by award-winning novelist Sandra Barneda's work, Land of Women stars Eva Longoria as Gala. Gala is a socialite in NYC, but when her husband becomes indebted to criminals she must flee the country with her daughter and mother for their safety. Gala takes her unsuspecting relatives to her mother's small hometown in Spain, where she loses her car and money early on their journey, forcing them to live with a local who takes pity on them. The series debuts on Apple TV+ on June 26.

Watch on Apple TV+

Problemista

A24's latest film to come to streaming is Problemista. Written and directed by Julio Torres , Problemista follows Alejandro (Torres) while he has one month left to find a sponsor for his visa — otherwise, he can't stay in the United States. Alejandro's only hope is the unpredictable woman he assists, an eccentric and erratic art studio owner played by Tilda Swinton . Problemista premieres on Max on Friday, June 28.

Watch on Max

Black Barbie: A Documentary

The illustrious Shonda Rhimes is the executive producer of Black Barbie: A Documentary that dives into the creation of Mattel's first Black Barbie. Not only is Rhimes the executive producer, but she also sits down and explains the importance and impact of including a Black doll in the Barbie lineup, as well as other stars like Gabourey Sidibe and Dear White People 's Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins . Along with this commentary, viewers will hear the stories of three Black women who were pivotal in Mattel's decision. Black Barbie: A Documentary premiered on Netflix on June 19.

Hotel Cocaine

Danny Pino plays Roman Compte in a new glamorous series, Hotel Cocaine . Compte is the general manager of Hotel Mutiny, Miami's hottest club in the late 1970s where drugs and disco reigned free. When a CIA agent realizes Compte's estranged brother is one of the biggest cocaine dealers in the area, he is forced to go undercover to keep his family safe. Hotel Cocaine premiered on MGM+ on June 23.

Watch on MGM+

Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini

Keith and Sherri Papini were a married couple whose lives looked perfect from the outside — until one fateful day when she went missing. When Sherri disappeared without a trace the news made headlines around the country. Her friends, family and the investigators on the case sit down for a new documentary series Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini on Hulu that explores what really happened. Get ready for some jaw-dropping revelations by watching the documentary streaming now.

Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple

A member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, a regular on The Soprano s and an activist who fought issues surrounding apartheid in South Africa, Stevie Van Zandt has a long list of impressive accomplishments. Max's new documentary Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple , which premiered on June 22, explores his long career as a producer, songwriter, activist, actor and more. The documentary features interviews from Zandt, other celebrities and behind-the-scenes footage.

Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.

Slave Play by playwright Jeremy O. Harris hit Broadway in 2019 and petitions to shut down the show quickly started due to its themes of sexuality and slavery. It broke the record for the most nominations for a play at the Tony's, until this year when Stereophonic broke that record. Max is taking viewers on a journey with Harris as he workshops his performance and strips down what it all means in Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play . The documentary premiered on Thursday, June 20.

House of the Dragon (Season 2)

House of the Dragon had the highest viewership for its first season finale since Game of Thrones, and now those eager viewers can finally settle in for a second season. Westeros is on the verge of a civil war while the Targaryen family members each fight for their claim to the Iron Throne. The first of the eight episodes for season 2 of House of the Dragon began streaming on Max on Sunday, June 16.

The Boys (Season 4)

The Boys are back as of Thursday, June 13 for a fourth season on Prime Video. The world is more divided than ever with those siding with the indestructible and power-hungry Homelander and the others on Team Starlight. The Butcher has lost all his allies, but with the high stakes, he knows he must find a way for them all to work together again. The Butcher's latest idea to take down the supes? A virus that kills only those with superpowers.

BRATS: ABC News Documentary Premiere

First named the "Brat Pack" in 1985 by New York magazine, the iconic group of young actors starred in some of the most iconic coming-of-age films of their generation, including The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire . One of the members, Andrew McCarthy , sits down with some of his fellow Brat Packers — Emilio Estevez , Rob Lowe , Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy — for an inside look at what life was like for these stars. Brats premiered on Hulu on Thursday, June 13.

Presumed Innocent (Limited Series)

Based on the New York Times best-selling novel of the same name by Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent is a new eight-episode crime thriller limited series. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Rusty Sabich, a chief deputy prosecutor whose life is turned upside down when his coworker is murdered. Investigators uncover Sabich's affair with the victim, and the situation looks even worse thanks to his unhealthy obsession with her. Despite the evidence against him, he maintains his innocence. Presumed Innocent premiered on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, June 12.

The 77th Annual Tony Awards

The 77th Annual Tony Awards, hosted by the talented Ariana DeBose , took place on Sunday, June 16. Hell's Kitchen (featuring songs by Alicia Keys ) and Stereophonic led the Tony nominations with 13 each. The Outsiders had 12 nominations, followed by Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, starring Eddie Redmayne , and Merrily We Roll Along with Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff . The Tony Awards aired on CBS. If you missed the show, it is now available to stream on-demand on Paramount+.

Watch on Paramount+

Love Island USA

One of our favorite reality dating shows, Love Island USA has returned with a brand new host. Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix hosts the sixth season of the hit reality show, picking up the helm from Modern Family 's Sarah Hyland (and before that, social media personality Arielle Vandenberg ). Sexy singles have headed to the vibrant villa ready to find love and you can watch it all go down by streaming the series on Peacock now.

Watch on Peacock

Bridgerton (Season 3, Part 2)

In the back half of Bridgerton season 3, Penelope Featherington's ( Nicola Coughlan ) struggles with how and when to share her secret with Colin Bridgerton ( Luke Newton ). Meanwhile, Violet Bridgerton worries about daughter Francesca's love match as a potential match of her own blooms. Part two of Bridgerton season 3 premiered on Netflix on June 13.

The Acolyte

When Jedi begin going missing, a Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) must confront his past to make things right. He believes his old student (Amandla Stenberg) may be behind the disappearances, but nothing is what it seems in this new Star Wars series. The first two episodes of Disney+'s The Acolyte premiered on Tuesday, June 4.

Watch on Disney+

Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a woman in her early 30s who is surprised to realize she isn't straight. Her friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno) guides her on her quest to start dating women, which proves difficult as Lucy has never stepped outside her comfort zone. Directed by real-life couple Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro , Am I OK? premiered on Max on June 6.

An Audience with Kylie

ITV's musical extravaganza, An Audience with Kylie , is now available for audiences in the United States to enjoy. Fans will hear Kylie Minogue sing her hit songs and see VIP guests including Bridgerton 's Jonathan Bailey and Nicola Coughlan at the show. The special began streaming on Hulu on Wednesday, June 5.

Let the Canary Sing

Cyndi Lauper created catchy, chart-topping melodies you couldn't help but sing over and over again, but even more than that, the artist had a strong influence on multiple generations. She used her fame to fight for feminism and advocate for those who couldn't speak up for themselves. Let the Canary Sing is a documentary streaming now on Paramount+ that dives into her legacy in the music industry as well as her impact through advocacy.

Watch on Paramount+

Gary Johnson ( Glen Powell ) is a straight-laced professor who pretends to be a hitman while performing in undercover stings for the police. Things get complicated when a woman (Adria Arjona) hires Johnson to kill her husband. Johnson begins to develop feelings for the unhappy wife and is shocked when her husband ends up dead — and not by his own hands. See it all go down by watching the rom-com streaming on Netflix now.

Jim Henson: Idea Man

Kermit the Frog, Sesame Street , Labyrinth and Fraggle Rock are just a handful of the iconic creations dreamed up by visionary puppeteer Jim Henson. Award-winning director Ron Howard teamed up with Disney+ to tell the story of Jim Henson's impact on the industry and world. Featuring interviews from Jim Henson himself and those impacted by his work — including Rita Moreno and Jennifer Connelly — this documentary gives an insightful look into his work and life. It premiered on Disney+ on May 31.

Die Hart 2: Die Harter

An action-packed film full of comedic geniuses — including Kevin Hart , John Cena , Ben Schwartz and Paula Pell — is one you'll want to add to your weekend movie night line-up. In the film, Hart (who plays himself) finds that he has been kidnapped for an evil revenge scheme. He must do everything he can to survive and enlist the help of those around him. The film premiered on Prime Video on May 30.

Lainey Wilson: Bell Bottom Country

One of the biggest names in country music right now, Lainey Wilson , is giving fans a glimpse inside her life in the ABC special Lainey Wilson: Bell Bottom Country . The showcase is said to give viewers an intimate look behind the scenes of her life and shows, with interviews from the sensational star and those closest to her. The special premiered on Hulu on May 29.

MoviePass, MovieCrash

MoviePass, a company built to give customers nearly unlimited access to the movies for an affordable monthly fee, was an instant success and one of the fastest-growing subscription services since Spotify. Despite the popularity, MoviePass eventually filed for bankruptcy, losing $150 million in 2017 alone. MoviePass, MovieCrash documents what led to the demise of this popular service. The documentary began streaming on Max on May 29 at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult

Netflix explores the social media dancers who were part of the 7M management company associated with a church. Viewers will see interviews from family members trying to get their loved ones out of the group and past members rebuilding their lives after leaving. The three-part documentary series Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult premiered on Netflix on May 29.

Dune: Part 2

The sand-covered planet of Arrakis came to life in Dune: Part One , which was first released in October 2021. Now fans can stream Dune: Part Two on Max as of May 21. Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya reprise their roles as main characters Paul Atreides and Chani. There was already serious talent in the first film, like Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides, and there are plenty more stars in the second film, including Austin Butler , Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken .

The Kardashians (Season 5)

"Have the Kardashians slowed down? No," says Khloe Kardashian in the season 5 trailer for The Kardashians . Based on the snippets in the two-minute trailer, she isn't lying. This season looks like it will be filled with family drama, health scares and endless entertainment from the influential family. The Kardashians premiered on Hulu on Thursday, May 23.

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American Made (2017)
American Made: Directed by Doug Liman. With Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons. The 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.
'American Made' sheds light on shady Arkansas airfield deals
There's only one mention of Bill Clinton in Tom Cruise's new movie, "American Made," which is about a Washington-sponsored operation in the early 1980s to send guns to rebel forces in ...
American Made (film)
American Made is a 2017 American action comedy film directed by Doug Liman, written by Gary Spinelli, and starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Alejandro Edda, Mauricio Mejía, Caleb Landry Jones, and Jesse Plemons. It is inspired by the life of Barry Seal, a former TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s and then, in order to avoid jail time ...
American Made (2017)
Synopsis. Set in the year 1978, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works as a pilot for Trans World Airlines. He is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright) and has two children with her, with a third on the way. While at a bar one night, Barry is found by a man saying his name is Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). He is familiar with Barry's work as a pilot, but ...
Tom Cruise Movie Based On Life Of Mena Man
Updated: 3:43 PM CDT October 7, 2017. MENA (KFSM) -- The movie American Made starring Tom Cruise opens in theaters Friday (Sept. 29). The movie depicts the life of Berry Seal in the 1980s after he ...
Where was American Made filmed?
Trace the filming locations of Tom Cruise's movie, American Made, and explore some of the stunning locations that were featured in the film. ... Ball Ground provided an authentic '80s Arkansas atmosphere, including views of Barry's house, dinner scenes, and city views. A crew filmed the scene at Gilmer Ferry Road, GA 30107, USA for five weeks.
American Made: All Locations Where The Tom Cruise Starrer Was Filmed
Most of the filming for 'American Made' took place in Georgia, with a very crucial part shot in Ball Ground in Cherokee County. In the movie, the Seal family had to flee their house in Louisiana for a safer home in Mena, Arkansas. The filming for all the scenes set in Mena was actually done in Ball Ground, at Gilmer Ferry Road, where the ...
Why Bill Clinton And George W. Bush Are Portrayed In A Tom Cruise Movie
American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. Seal's exploits brought him into close contact with infamous figures like Medellín cartel kingpins Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa and Panama dictator Manuel Noriega — and he was ...
Barry Seal: The Renegade Pilot Behind Tom Cruise's 'American Made'
In 2017, Barry Seal's life became the subject of a Hollywood adaptation titled American Made, starring Tom Cruise. The film never set out to be a documentary, according to film's director Doug Liman, who described the blockbuster as "a fun lie based on a true story," according to TIME. Surprisingly, American Made actually downplayed ...
American Made (2017)
Tom Cruise carries the movie with his charisma. Rated 3/5 Stars • Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/17/24 Full Review Lorry S Watch it. A very good Tom Cruise movie that a lot of people missed.
'American Made' Film Ranks #4 in U.S. on Netflix
"American Made," a film that showcases the smuggling of drugs through the Mena, Arkansas airport in the 1980s, just came to Netflix and is already ranked #4 on its list of Top 10 Movies in the U.S. Today (Oct. 16, 2023). ... However, the basis of the 2017 Tom Cruise movie was built off of several books, conspiracy theories and movies about ...
Quirky Seal, quiet Arkansas town drew 'American Made' screenwriter
Barry Seal (Tom Cruise ) is accosted by narcotics kingpin Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda) in Doug Liman's American Made, the story of the Mena-based smuggler. Barry Seal liked to use pay phones. He ...
American Made: True Story Behind Tom Cruise-Barry Seal Movie
7 minute read. American Made, the new Tom Cruise crime drama out Sept. 29, has all the makings of a romp: drug running and arms smuggling. An FBI sting. Enough cold, hard cash to make the ...
Tom Cruise's New Movie Set in Ark. Opens Friday
SHARE. FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Tom Cruise's new movie "American Made" opens Friday, and it's partially set in Arkansas. The film focuses on a commercial airline pilot named Barry Seal who ...
American Made
American Made [Movie] The 2017 film American Made, starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, and Sarah Wright Olsen, is a fictionalized retelling of events in the life of smuggler and pilot Barry Seal, who, during the 1980s, transported drugs and guns between Central America and the United States. The film was written by Gary Spinelli and directed ...
What's Fact and What's Fiction in American Made
In the movie, in return for his get out of jail free card, Schafer wants Seal to fly AK-47s out of Mena to the Contras, the insurgent group tasked with overthrowing the Sandinistas, the leftwing ...
Who's afraid of Barry Seal?
The poster for the movie "American Made," to be released Friday, Sept. 29, shows a grinning, cocky Tom Cruise as the drug smuggler Barry Seal, hauling a duffle bag bursting with cash.
'American Made': Film Review
Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman reteam for 'American Made,' a dark comedy-thriller about pilot Barry Seal, who worked for both the CIA and the Colombian cartel in the 1980s.
'80s drug, gun saga portrayed in new Tom Cruise movie remains sore spot
CLOSE-UP FOR MENA '80s drug, gun saga portrayed in new Tom Cruise movie remains sore spot for city in Arkansas. Some hope movie draws tourists. October 1, 2017 at 4:30 a.m. | Updated October 2 ...
American Made vs. the True Story of Barry Seal
Did Tom Cruise do all of his own flying in the movie? Yes. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself (Vulture.com). Tom Cruise got his pilot's license in 1994. "I fly airplanes. I'm a multi-engine, instrument-rated commercial pilot," Cruise said in a Wired interview. "Doug and I are both ...
Tom Cruise's 'American Made' Almost Had A Scene Featuring Bill ...
According to a new report, Bill Clinton was nearly depicted getting a lap dance in an Arkansas strip club. The Tom Cruise movie establishes a small Arkansas city as a hub of the Columbian drug ...
12 Movies Filmed in Arkansas
Based upon the 1991 John Grisham book, this movie starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman remains, to date, to be the highest-grossing Grisham book film adaptation. While the film and book are set in Tennessee, some scenes were shot in Marion. Grisham is actually an Arkansan himself, hailing from Jonesboro. 2 h 34 min | R. Biloxi Blues (1988)
Tom Cruise's Daughter, Suri, Drops Dad's Surname For High School ...
Suri Cruise, daughter of Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, marked a significant milestone last week as she graduated from high school in New York City.The 18-year-old's graduation ...
'American Made'
The 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 DateSeptember 29 ...
This Tom Cruise Movie Missed the Target at the Box Office
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning has found success on Netflix after struggling to outdo its hefty budget at the box office.; Despite its box office woes, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning ...
Tom Cruise Approved Mission: Impossible Footage For Action Movie Led By
Tom Cruise approved the use of Mission: Impossible footage in Thelma, with director Josh Margolin explaining how he received permission. Thelma stars 94-year-old June Squibb in her first-ever leading role.The 93-year-old character, Thelma Post, seeks revenge and becomes an unlikely action hero after being scammed out of $10,000. Margolin based the character and the story on his own 104-year ...
The Best New TV Shows and Movies to Stream This Week
A Family Affair is a movie coming to streaming this Friday and features a star-studded cast including Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Kathy Bates and Joey King. Celine Dion opens up about her battle ...

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The True Story Behind the Movie American Made

Fact: Seal was an unusually talented young pilot.

Fact: He had a colorful personality.

Partly Fiction: He was married to a woman named Lucy and they had three kids.

Fiction: The government first took notice of his smuggling when he was transporting Cuban cigars.

Fact: He smuggled drugs in through the Louisiana coast.

Mostly Fiction: Seal was chummy with the leaders of Colombia’s Medellín Cartel, including Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

Fact: Seal offered to cooperate with the DEA to stay out of prison.

Contested: He worked for many years alongside the CIA.

Fact: Seal was assassinated in 1986.

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