Fun movie, if not for the fact that the truth was changed to protect the guilty.

In real life, Barry Seal was fired from TWA in '72 when he was charged for smuggling plastic explosives across Mexico. He flew tons of coke into the States for multiple drug kingpins, including Escobar. When he was busted, he started working for the DEA as an informant. He was overweight, poisoned his fellow Americans with drugs; and didn't care about his family enough to enter WITSEC.

From a historical perspective, it should be taken with a grain of salt that a guy like Seal, given his position, can be placed in a situation where everything is cool, time after time after time after time again.