Review: Beirut

Screenwriter Tony Gilroy likes to make his actors sweat. Literally and figuratively. George Clooney has arguably never worked as hard as he did in Gilroy's directorial debut, Michael Clayton, and now Jon Hamm is put through his paces in one of, if not the, best roles of his post-Mad Men career in the Gilroy-penned Beirut.

Very much harkening back to the political thrillers that populated Seventies and Eighties cinema, Beirut begins in 1972 as Hamm's Mason Skiles hosts a party for numerous political figures. A U.S. diplomat in Lebanon living in Beirut, he's a smooth operator, completely in his element as he charms everyone with his chatter. When trying to broker peace between two warring entities, the important thing is to keep talking. "Once the talking stops, the fighting starts," he says. All seems well until friend and colleague Cal Riley (Mark Pellegrino) arrives with troubling news. It seems the 13-year-old Lebanese orphan Karim that Mason and his wife have taken in is no orphan at all; in fact, he's the younger brother of a man who has been linked to the 1972 Munich massacre. Within minutes, life as Mason knows it is destroyed: the party is attacked by Karim's brother and his armed crew, Karim is taken, and Mason's wife is killed in the chaos.

Cut to ten years later. Mason is now a small-time negotiator handling labour disputes and a big-time drunk. Despite his initial reluctance, he finds himself lured back to Beirut for a mysterious mission. It seems he's the only man for this particular job or, more precisely, he's the only man that's been requested for the assignment. Cal has been taken hostage and his abductor won't negotiate with anyone but Mason, much to the annoyance of the group of Americans trying to keep the situation under wraps and who have little to no faith in the drunkard. It's even more alarming to the group - which include Colonel Gary Ruzak (Shea Whigham), CIA agent Donald Gaines (Dean Norris), State Department official Frank Shalen (Larry Pine), and Mason's CIA handler Sandy Crowder (Rosamund Pike) - when they learn that the kidnapper is the grown-up Karim and that his intention is to trade Cal, who knows quite a lot of government secrets, in exchange for his brother, who might be held captive by the Israelis.

The whole set of affairs is a powder keg waiting to explode and Gilroy and director Brad Anderson do well in pacing the narrative, luxuriating in the political gamesmanship and moral quagmire at play. Though a chunk of the film is essentially a series of meetings, Beirut never lags due to Gilroy's crackling and intelligent dialogue which is brought to vibrant life by the sterling cast. If there's one cavil, it's that Pike is slightly short shrifted in comparison to her male co-stars. One early scene involving the team has her displaying a flintiness that is never quite exploited in the rest of the film, though it does make one think that she would make a terrific Diana Christensen should they ever make remake of Network.

However, the whole film hangs on Hamm, who truly embodies the world-weary, jaundiced, self-destructive, yet fundamentally good Mason to perfection.

Beirut

Directed by: Brad Anderson

Written by: Tony Gilroy

Starring: Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Larry Pine, Shea Whigham, Mark Pellegrino