STACK September 2017 Issue 155

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Doug Liman seems to have a knack
for taking Tom Cruise out of his
controlled comfort zone to get the
best out of him. In Edge of Tomorrow he
was a coward doomed to die every day,
and in American Made he's a drug runner
who flashes his butt and staggers from a
plane covered in cocaine. Not the sort of
behaviour you associate with Hollywood's
most polarising star, and that's one of the
reasons why this is one of his less grating
performances.
Needless to say, American Made is a
better fit for Cruise than The Mummy .
He's much more at home here; back in
the cockpit and aviator sunnies as Barry
Seal, the real-life TWA pilot turned CIA
courier turned drug runner and eventual
pawn for the Reagan
administration.
With his
thousand watt
RELEASED: Aug 17 DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh
CAST: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel
Craig, Katherine Waterston RATING: M
Steven Soderbergh emerges from his self-imposed
retirement from filmmaking with something he
can direct in his sleep – a heist movie. But unlike
the unlucky Ocean’s Thirteen, this character-driven
caper comedy isn’t a phoned-in job. The Logan
brothers, Jimmy (Channing Tatum) and Clyde (Adam
Driver), plot to fleece the local NASCAR speedway
via the system of underground tunnels where Jimmy
worked in construction, giving him an insider’s view
on the vacuum tube system that carries the track’s
loot. Mention of a Logan family curse suggests
their plan is doomed to failure, but this seemingly
dim-witted duo could just be sharp enough to pull
it off, especially with the help of explosives whiz
Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and their getaway driver
sister (Riley Keough). The mechanics of the heist
prove secondary to the enjoyment of spending two
hours in the company of a bunch of redneck misfits
for whom John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country
Roads is an anthem, Fast and the Furious is a family
film, and a daughter must be spray tanned prior
to competing in a kiddie talent contest. Casting
against type is the film’s major windfall, with
Tatum as an oafish single dad, Driver as a deadpan
amputee barman, and Craig as a bleached-blonde
Bondshell with a southern drawl – who steals
scenes while the rest are stealing greenbacks.
With a convenience store figuring into the heist, a
throwaway line succinctly sums up Logan Lucky –
“it’s like Ocean’s 7–11.” Scott Hocking
LOGAN LUCKY
The Lost City of Z features Charlie Hunnam’s best
film performance to date. That might sound like faint
praise – especially after the excess of King Arthur:
Legend of the Sword – but there’s not a trace of
Jax Teller in his portrayal of real-life British Army
Colonel turned Amazon explorer, Percy Fawcett. He
gets to keeps his English accent and his shirt on
for the entire running time! Fawcett’s adventure
begins in the early 1900s on a border mapping
mission to the Bolivian Amazon, where he discovers
evidence of a lost civilisation hidden deep within
the rainforest. This two year assignment turns into
a lifelong obsession, and despite the dangers that
come with the territory (tribal hostility and a bit of
Cannibal Holocaust nastiness) and a recall to duty
during World War I, Fawcett returns to search for
the lost city of Z (Zed in the film, but Zee has more
of a ring to it), spurred on by the discovery of Machu
Picchu in 1911. Director James Gray, best known for
his urban dramas The Yards and We Own the Night,
is more at home on the streets of New York, and this
ambitious adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction
best-seller never manages to capture the excitement
and intrigue of Fawcett’s story. Alternating between
period drama and jungle adventure, and with
decades to cover at a rather sluggish pace, The
Lost City of Z is dreamily captivating but frequently
patience-testing. Audiences could find themselves
catching up on some lost Zzzzs. Scott Hocking
THE LOST CITY OF Z
RELEASED: Aug 24 DIRECTOR: James Gray
CAST: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson,
Sienna Miller RATING: M
More risky business for Tom Cruise.
AMERICAN MADE
RELEASED: Aug 24
DIRECTOR: Doug Liman
CAST: Tom Cruise, Domhnall
Gleeson, Caleb Landry Jones
RATING: MA15+
048 SEPTEMBER 2017
RATING KEY:
Wow!
Good
Not bad
Meh Woof!
visit CINEMA REVIEWS
smile and cocksure mien, Cruise turns Seal
into an all-American antihero – think Top
Gun's Maverick sporting a layer of grime,
sweat and sleaze.
Seal's reputation as a pilot and smuggler
of contraband cigars precedes him, leading
to clandestine CIA work supplying arms
to Central American freedom fighters, and
cocaine to the US for the Medellin cartel
during the 1980s. He's "the gringo who
always delivers."
Operating on both sides of the law
with apparent impunity, the opportunistic
Seal quickly builds an empire in Arkansas,
amassing a cash stash to eclipse Walter
White's and counting Pablo Escobar,
Manuel Noriega and Oliver North as friends.
The film matches Seal's brio; snappily
edited, self-consciously cool, and
channelling the perky period vibe of Boogie
Nights and The Nice Guys. It's the kind of
incredible-but-true story of a larger-than-
life character (see also Frank Abagnale
Jr. in Catch Me if You Can) that's often
so implausible, you'd need to suspend
disbelief if it was fiction.
Liman acknowledges this by presenting
Seal's story as a briskly paced and
freewheeling comedic jaunt that's
consistently entertaining and amusing,
even if it does get stuck in a repetitive loop
after a while. A bolder than usual Cruise
helps to seal the deal. Scott Hocking