Hollywood screenwriters spend their days wiling away, imagining up their next story, but often the best movies come from real-life.

And, that's the case in Tom Cruise's latest film American Made, as it delves into the true story of Barry Seal, pilot-cum-drug smuggler, turned informant.

"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."

In the trailer Tom Cruise as Seal tells us that only "some of this sh*t really happened" and Liman best summarised the movie as "a fun lie based on a true story." So what really happened?

How did he become a smuggler?

The real Barry Seal found himself at the centre of the Iran-Contra scandal of Ronald Regan's era.

Seal had always loved flying, it was a passion that began early on in life. He took his first flight aged 15, gaining his licence at 16. No small feat. He also went on to earn money towing advertising banners across the skies. He was an entrepreneurial go-getter.

He went on to serve in the Louisiana Army National Guard and Army Reserve, then Trans World Airlines in 1968. Seal was a flight engineer - and went on to become one of the youngest command pilots in the entire fleet at 26-years-old.

The real Barry Seal was a pilot and drug smuggler

So how does a pilot of such high-esteem go on to become a smuggler?

His wife Debbie Seal (not Lucy as she's named in the movie) confessed he became a drug smuggler in 1975, though she denied she knew it at the time.

It was in the 80s that Seal apparently developed a close relationship with the Medellin Cartel. The cartel included Pablo Escobar .

He moved his operations from his home state of Louisiana to Arkansas, using an airstrip in the rural west.

Skip ahead to 1983, and Seal was caught in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when he smuggled a shipment of Quaaludes into the country.

Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal - with his on screen wife (
Image:
Cross Creek Pictures)

Desperate to avoid jail

He's admitted by this point he'd already flown more than 100 flights of 600 to 1200 pounds of cocaine each. That's $3bn to $5bn worth of drugs all taken into the US.

Seal was sentenced to ten years in prison for the crime, though he had tried to avoid jail time. Former FBI agent Del Hahn, speaking to VICE , said Seal was desperate to avoid jail time, but his offer to turn snitch was turned down - multiple times.

Instead Seal flew to Washington and the office of the Vice-President's drug task force directly, where he was sent to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He was taken on for sting ops.

Video Loading

Seal's bold claims - and how they were torn apart

The US - or at least the Reagan administration - was very keen to see the Contras militia overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government.

Seal claimed the Sandinistas had made a deal with the Medellin Cartel. With proof of such a deal it could lend justification to US support of the Contras, despite accusations of human rights violations amongst the counter-revolutionaries.

The pilot flew into Nicaragua with CIA cameras on his plane, taking photos showing Escobar and several other members of the Cartel loading kilos of cocaine onto a plane with Sandinista soldiers.

Seal claimed Federico Vaughan was present and was an associate of Tomas Borge of the interior ministry of Nicaragua.

Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny soon brought Seal's claims into doubt, claiming there was no evidence tying the two together.

He wasn't the only one. The Washington Times ran a front page story about links between Sadinista officials and the cartel. It discussed the mission and seemingly outed him as an agent.

How was Seal killed?

Barry Seal was assassinated (
Image:
Cross Creek Pictures)

The DEA was at risk, and cut Barry lose. He was arrested by the FBI who gave him a mere six months supervised probation - on the condition that he spent every night from 6pm to 6am at the Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge.

It was here that he met his end, shot down and killed in February 1986.

“I saw Barry get killed from the window of the Belmont hotel coffee shop," said a friend. "The killers were both out of the car, one on either side, but I only saw one shoot, 'cause Barry saw it coming and just put his head down on the steering column.”

Seal arrived that evening at about 6pm 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 Seal opened the driver's side door to get out of the car, the gunman rushed from behind the drop box and fired a .45 calibre Mac-10 machine gun, hitting Seal in the head and body several times.

Colombian assassins sent by the cartel were apprehended as they tried to escape Louisiana.

Three were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. There are still theories that the CIA was behind the shooting, though there's no proof.

The failure to protect

Louisiana Attorney General William Guste hand-delivered a letter to US Attorney General Edwin Meese in protest at the government’s failure to protect Seal.

While he called him a “heinous criminal” he went on to say: “at the same time, for his own purposes, he had made himself an extremely valuable witness and informant in the country’s fight against illegal drugs.

“Barry Seal’s murder suggests the need for an in-depth but rapid investigation into a number of areas. Why was such an important witness not given protection whether he wanted it or not?”

There is no answer.

Tom Cruise's movie and how it's different

American Made has a slightly different look (
Image:
Cross Creek Pictures)

Of course, this isn't quite how Tom Cruise's character is recruited in the movie. Cruise's bored commercial pilot performs daring stunts that draws the attention of the CIA rather than committing illegal acts.

Operative Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson) approaches Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) and tells him, "We need you to deliver stuff for us," but the simple interaction never happened.

The real Barry Seal claimed he had been working for agencies as early as the 50s while in the Civil Air Patrol. He was fired from Trans World Airlines in 1974 for falsely citing medical leave when he was actually off trafficking weapons.

Many say the CIA turned a blind eye to Seal's drug smuggling as he became useful smuggling weapons to the Nicaraguan rebels. It appears Seal flew weapons there and then brought drugs back.

It's a real possibility - and what the movie suggests.

It's also possible that Seal's involvement with the CIA in the 1980s is fictional, surrounded by misinformation. We at least know his exploits with the CIA and Monty Schafer are mostly fictional and based off speculation.

Hero or smuggler?

(
Image:
Cross Creek Pictures)

In the film Cruise is made an offer he can't refuse after he was kidnapped while refueling his plane, while in real life Seal had a choice and he started smuggling way before the movie suggests.

In fact, 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.

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 US in the early 1980s.

Seal made about $60m from smuggling drugs - becoming one of the richest people in America.

While Cruise's character executing missions for the government adds a sort of patriotism to it all, in real life Seal was first and foremost a drug smuggler.

American Made is out now on digital, 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, and DVD on December 26.

Flight Training London is a UK based, CAA approved, professional and safe flying school based at London Elstree Aerodrome, the closest aerodrome to Central and North London.