Tom Cruise's 115-Minute Crime Comedy Is One Of HBO Max's Biggest Streaming Hits

There was a time when Tom Cruise wasn't exclusively devoted to his "Mission: Impossible" franchise and other action movie IPs like "Top Gun," and still appeared in smaller-scale flicks that suited his action-guy image, like "Jack Reacher" and "Knight and Day." The last time he did that was nearly 10 years ago in Doug Liman's crime-caper "American Made" — now streaming on HBO Max — a sort of light-weight, "spiritual" companion piece to the first series of Netflix's "Narcos" that mainly covered the Pablo Escobar years during America's war on drugs. In it, he played the non-fictional Barry Seal (Gary Spinelli's script drew on his wild real-life story), a legit pilot who briefly worked for Escobar's Medellín Cartel as a drug smuggler, while also making deals with the CIA and the DEA to avoid incarceration for smuggling.

Liman's movie covers a huge chunk of Seal's life from the time the CIA recruited him until his eventual assassination by the Medellín Cartel in 1986. We follow him through some of the most dangerous and challenging stunts, alongside his family life with his wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright), and three children, from whom he initially kept his illegal activities secret until they became impossible to hide. Seal was a true hustler of life until his fate inevitably caught up to him — he got rich but paid the price in years, dying at only 46 years old.

It's no surprise to see "American Made" doing well on streaming — currently sitting at the number four spot on HBO Max's Top 10 movie chart — since it's a stupendously captivating and intriguing depiction of a true crime story amplified by Cruise's irresistible charisma (and his extensive knowledge of flying planes), served through Liman's smooth and fast-paced direction. The two have already worked together (making the remarkable sci-fi blockbuster "Edge of Tomorrow"), and they're both experts at making spectacular, breathtaking, adrenaline-fuelled pictures that leave audiences in awe. "American Made" has some of that magic, even if it's a more traditional crime film, combined with Seal's bonkers criminal adventures borrowed from real life that make it a crowd-pleaser for viewers intrigued by bigger-than-life personas immersed in organized crime.

It's easy to see why "American Made" fared well with critics upon release (with an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing) and crushed it at the box office. Against its mid-budget of $50 million, Liman's movie grossed over $134 million worldwide in 2017. For a non-blockbuster and non-IP feature, that's a pretty impressive run. And even if it won't become the epitome of either the crime or action genre, it's a very solid and well-executed flick you can't go wrong with if you're looking for something unique and light, starring a seasoned Hollywood actor.