2018 Directed by Brad Anderson
In 1980s Beirut, Mason Skiles is a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from the group that is possibly responsible for his own family's death. Meanwhile, a CIA field agent who is working under cover at the American embassy is tasked with keeping Mason alive and ensuring that the mission is a success.
Jon Hamm Rosamund Pike Shea Whigham Dean Norris Mark Pellegrino Douglas Hodge Alon Abutbul Kate Fleetwood Leïla Bekhti Jonny Coyne Larry Pine Sonia Okacha Ben Affan Idir Chender Mohamed Attougui Ian Porter Neal Huff Jay Potter Khalid Benchagra Yoav Sadian Colin Stinton Hichame Ouraqa Nick Holder Mohamed Zouaoui Abdellah Chakiri Nicholas Woodeson Brahim Rachiki Jonathan Bonnici Ronald Reagan
High Wire Act, The Negotiator, Ha'megasher, El Rehen, ביירות, Бейрут, Точка невозврата [High Wire Act (2017)]
War and historical adventure High speed and special ops Politics and human rights political, democracy, documentary, president or propaganda war, soldiers, combat, fought or military terrorism, thriller, gripping, intense or political spy, agent, intrigue, thriller or suspense war, wwii, combat, military or duty Show All…
Pretty mercilessly generic even by the standards of one of the Gilroy brothers. I did like the part where it briefly becomes a Jon Hamm biopic and he's just getting smashed in a hotel bar while some shitty band covers Air Supply.
i’m standing right outside the theater i just came out of and i legitimately cannot think of anything to say about this. if i wanted two hours of quiet peace during The Death of Stalin, then the last two hours i spent watching Beirut have given me immediate retrograde amnesia. this is as standard as you can get, i guess. solid acting; john hamm and rosamund pike are captivating, but that’s by nature. the camera... does... things. otherwise? uninspired. predictable. also i think some dude used to be on Supernatural (or was it The Vampire Diaries?)
this uhhh. this happened.
66/100
Gratifyingly smart and admirably specific (in terms of geopolitical history—Gilroy assumes baseline knowledge about the then-impending Lebanon War, mostly refuses to spoonfeed), though there's something missing at the core. Everything's at surface level, coolly functional; the 1972-set prologue serves up both a painful death and the setup for a later (fairly predictable) plot twist, but in neither case does Hamm's all-business negotiator seem driven by even a hint of reckless emotion. That's Ed, watching him tersely bottom-line one scene after another is a nonstop low-key pleasure, complemented by Anderson's own smooth professionalism behind the lens. Whoever put that terrible wig on Dean Norris, however, should be blackballed from the industry.
Sometimes life isn't fair. It seems Beirut is getting more positive attention, even though 7 Days in Entebbe (also starring Rosamund Pike) was a better movie in my opinion. Entebbe was straightforward and it wasn't tough to figure out what was going on.
Beirut is a mess. I don't care what anyone says. The 10 star review ("Thoughtful, tense thriller - ignore the haters with irrelevant agendas") on IMDB must have been written by someone associated with this film. I was laughing throughout the review, reading the lies!!!! There is no way!!!
There was a reference to Munich 1972 and it seemed to be set in the 1970s. But then they kept showing pictures of Bush and Reagan, so then…
Action!: Anderson, Anderson, Anderson…. Andersson? – Brad Off The Fringe
So what would you know, I actually remembered more of this movie than what I thought. Also the ending definitely makes much sense once you actually seen most of the first two acts before falling asleep, not because this was boring but rather because it was already too late.
Truth is this is a very solid political thriller, albeit a bit confusing and convoluted despite the fact the premise its rather simple. Having gone basically through all Anderson’s work by now, its great to see he’s really good jumping from one genre to the other and adjusting his style when required. This is definitely a different movie to what came…
largely effective, competent, if uninspired geopolitical thriller. gilroy's screenplay gets points for its le-carré-lite pacing and for being marginally thornier than i anticipated (especially for being written in the 90s!!) but given recent events it's difficult not to feel like there's really nothing left to be learned about this conflict from this POV, if there ever was. great cast tho.
"Beirut" is nothing groundbreaking or original, but it works very well as a tight and entertaining thriller. It moves at a fast pace, the story kept me engaged throughout and Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike are really great here.
ah yes the most 3 star movie of all time. It never tries to be coherent enough to be a great movie, but consistently watchable. Dean Norris with hair is very scary. I'm pretty sure they say "Beirut" upward of 35 times. I just love that Jon Hamm with his old school movie star swag.
Seems to believe the standard nonsense that political conflict is born not of genuine disagreements but rather of simple misunderstandings, and the only bit of substance is the trite but true idea that you have to face your traumas rather than run away from them, but I'll be damned if Tony Gilroy doesn't write the perfect political thriller that you can pick up at the airport before a long flight, read exactly once, and buy a copy for your father before forgetting about entirely for the rest of your life.
The sort of muscular, morally hazy pulp fiction for adults that I eat up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sure, it’s the very definition of middlebrow, but the numerous plot twists make up for any lack of ponderousness. Jon Hamm is the perfect drunken, haunted Tony Gilroy protag, always one step ahead of everyone in the room, regardless of how much he's had to drink or lingering melancholy from the past. There's some ham-fisted political commentary regarding Reagan era globalism in the back half that feels a touch forced, but the rest really sings as a tight programmer.
Let’s negotiate, shall we? Imagine a more brutal version of “Argo” mixed with elements of “Bridge Of Spies” (Without the laughs and sentimentality) and you get BEIRUT. Jon Hamm gives his best film performance yet in the tense, adult thriller filled with twists and turns. Entertaining, paced well and it also features a good musical score. They don’t make adult thrillers like this often anymore which is another reason why we shouldn’t be closing the door on this one.
A solid, competent political thriller. Hamm and Pike are excellent as always. I admire when a film doesn't try and expand beyond the scale of the story, and this is happy to limit the tale to a constrained microcosm.
