Beirut (2018) Review!!!

Synopsis – Caught in the crossfires of civil war, CIA operatives must send a former U.S. diplomat to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind.

My Take – A couple of decades ago, the country of Lebanon, specially its capital Beirut, was the center of a cauldron of conflicts which involved, the PLO, Israel, Syria, Religious Militias and of course the United States of America, which led to a multifaceted civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities. Here, director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) and writer Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Trilogy), use this setting to set a tale, loosely based on the1984 abduction of CIA station chief William Buckley by Hezbollah, to carefully steer us through the city’s growing rubble to chronicle an old school political thriller with a vibe that isn’t seen often in today’s films.

This isn’t a spoon fed, action packed shoot ‘em up like the Bourne films, which incidentally writer Gilroy wrote the roles for. Think film like ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ and ‘Argo’ for similar suspense. This intriguing picture emerges as a mental challenge containing multi-layers of plot devices from beginning to end. Aided by a sense of retro charm and bathed in a yellowy hue that appears to be the go-to filter for Hollywood’s take on anything Middle East, director Brad Anderson‘s film doesn’t break convention, but manages a certain robustness that keeps it entertaining and engaging. Fueled by a well-constructed script and perhaps Jon Hamm’s finest big screen lead performance to date, it should satisfy fans of the genre with its intensity and its immersive portrait of the war-torn Lebanese capital in the midst of a civil war.

Beginning in 1972, the story follows Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm), a U.S. diplomat, who seems to be doing well politically while serving in a pre-Lebanese Civil War Beirut, as well as living a happy life with his local born wife, Nadia (Leila Bekhti). However, tragedy strikes when he finds out from his colleague, Cal Riley (Mark Pellegrino), that Karim (Yoav Sadian Rosenberg), the young orphan they have taken under their wing, is actually wanted by Mossad as his older brother, Karim Abu Rajal (Hicham Ouraqa), who has earned notoriety as terrorist mastermind behind the Munich Olympic attack, has been in contact with Karim all this time, which leads to a blur of violence and terror within his own home, that sees his career and his family life all destroyed at once.

Ten years later, Mason who has now retreated to Boston, turns to drink, and wastes his big-league negotiating skills on small-time union-management disputes. However, duty calls once again when Cal, who is also now a part of the CIA, is taken hostage, with the negotiator, a grown up Karim (Idir Chender), specifically asking for Mason’s involvement to exchange Cal for his now even more infamous brother. Once on the ground, Mason soon realizes that most of the Beirut-based U.S. officials and operatives that include Gary Ruzak (Shea Whigham), Donald Gaines (Dean Norris), and the US Ambassador (Larry Pine) are more concerned about safeguarding the secrets Cal knows than saving the man himself. With the city divides into zones controlled by Christian militias on one side of the infamous “Green Line,” Sunni and Shia Muslim groups on the other, with Syria, Israel and the U.S all jockeying to influence the outcome in their favor, Mason and with only his handler, Sandy Crowder (Rosamund Pike), by his side must survive one tight spot after another, and do their best to stay one step ahead of the wheels kinetically in motion.

While the premise of the film may seem stubbornly out of time, which makes sense once you know that writer Tony Gilroy’s screenplay has been making the rounds since 1991. By chipping off the rust and by applying a fresh coat of 21st-century technology, director Brad Anderson has now unveiled this twisty-turner with all the irresistible trappings of a solid spy film. Sure, the story itself is predictable, there are double-crosses and red herrings and one CIA-focused plot hole that’s large enough to swallow Lebanon itself whole, but there is a unique confidence in not only writer Gilroy’s sharp sense of character and dialogue, but also director Anderson’s smooth command of action and the chance to watch Hamm carefully think things through on-screen.

The film also bears the stamp of each filmmaker, propelled by Gilroy’s instinctive knack for keeping a clear, coherent story in constant forward motion, and executed with director Anderson’s unfussy approach to visuals and character cues. Especially Anderson who helms the project with a sure hand, ratcheting up tension at the right moments while keeping things moving. The film doesn’t rocket along at a Bourne like breakneck pace but neither does it crawl like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. More in the vein of John le Carré style inspired film, with Mason Skiles’ only weapon in the film is his negotiating skills, and works like a spiritual prequel, so to speak, to screenwriter Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton.

Here, writer Gilroy and director Anderson have managed to make a plausible suspense story riddled with political intrigue in the world’s geographic center of perpetual conflict — while keeping it relatively apolitical, in the sense of taking no particular “side.” That’s largely because, apart from our flawed but genuinely well-intentioned heroes, nearly everyone here operates out of duplicitous self-interest. But it also doesn’t ask of its audience to pull for any particular side politically, as they’re all driven by uncomfortable agendas, but at least the militia group is transparent about it.

The only agenda that Mason is driven by is personal. While the film aims to be less a statement about Middle Eastern strife than a good yarn propelled by the unpredictable currents of international politics, there’s an atmosphere of constant threatened violence, and a few jarring moments of the actual kind, but mostly the film trades in an agreeably old-school form of cinematic espionage intrigue. While he is no James Bond, Mason remains singularly unflappable even as he’s crashing through heavily armed checkpoints or stepping over the rubble of his old home. With the exception of Mason, who continues to harbor frayed hope for deal making, even though he knows better, very few players in the film are conventionally sympathetic — including the American Foreign Service lifers who haven’t bothered to learn Arabic while embedding in the region.

Their dismissive attitude is summed up in Mason’s description of Lebanon in an early sequence as a “boardinghouse without a landlord,” where the tenants are “bound only by their shared talent for betrayal.” There’s also a pertinent subplot about the radicalization of a young Muslim boy that cuts to the heart of radical Islam’s lure, and the reasons for and responses to it. But the film is perhaps best appreciated as a textbook showcase for Mason’s specialized brand of no-nonsense problem solving. “It’s nothing that can’t be fixed,” he says in 1973, before his life is uprooted. However, what holds the script back from being truly excellent is that savvy audiences who know this genre will be able to see the twists and turns coming, as writer Gilroy surrounds his protagonist with recognizable archetypes and stock characters from other political thrillers, so while Mason may not know who to trust within the film, people watching certainly will be able to pick out the bad eggs from the good.

However, the biggest mistake writer Gilroy and director Armstrong make here is by not making the talented Pike, a bigger presence earlier in the film. Sandy is, eventually, a key player, and Pike shares a decent chemistry with Hamm, but besides running behind him, she has nothing much to do. On the other side, though little hope resides yet for a peace between Arabs and Israelis, the film succeeds in fleshing out the multiple points of view that have kept the Mideast a stew of ambitions and hatred. It’s a complex thinking man’s film, that while fiction, is based in enough reality, to make it feel grounded in its unfolding of the story and eventual outcome. Because of that, some viewers may leave the theater with the feeling that it was anti climatic in the end, but that’s how these things tend to end in the real world. This is further brought to the viewers’ attention as the film ends as real world news clips are played from the period that cover further historical events that happened in the region, all with a similar ending as the film itself.

The film also offers a showcase for Jon Hamm, who for some reason is not yet considered an A lister, as he clearly has the ability to draw you in and keep you captivated. Taking center stage here, Hamm makes the most of the opportunity, and delivers the performance all his fans from his ‘Mad Men‘ days have been waiting for. His credible and engaging range of expression as the downcast yet still honest and well-meaning Stiles, is someone who audiences will wind up wanting to see come out on top. While Gilroy’s script gives plenty to Hamm to work with in terms of character, it doesn’t provide much at all for anyone else. Like I mentioned above, of all the talent wasted in poorly fleshed out roles, the most egregious waste is that of Rosamund Pike. Thriller fans who remember Pike from her Oscar-nominated lead role in Gone Girl, will know she’s capable of much more than she’s given to do here. In supporting roles, Dean Norris, Shea Whigham, Mark Pellegrino, Idir Chender and Larry Pine are good. On the whole, ‘Beirut’ is an engaging, well-crafted old school thriller that works well as a personal drama, a political film and a spy story.