How does one forget they have a screenplay lying around? Something like that happened with this, not entirely sure what the exact story is. Tony Gilroy, who wrote Michael Clayton and the better Bourne movies, wrote this back in the early 90’s and for some reason just now stumbled on it.
Jon Hamm (doing his best work since Mad Men) is an American who lived in Beirut in the 70’s. After a terrorist attack kills his wife and throws his life in shambles, he retreats back to the States and desperately tries to forget about his past. Fast forward ten years, and he’s lured back to Beirut under false pretenses. Come to find out, his closest friend from his previous time in this city is being held hostage and has specifically requested him to negotiate his release.
The movie was a little inconsistent for me. There’s some amazing and intense sequences (the first 20 min or so, for example). Those are what make the movie. However, stringing those sequences together are a lot of slower and less interesting scenes. The space between the highs and lows is pretty wide.
Hamm is fantastic tho. Everything you loved about him as Don Draper is channeled into this role: the arrogance and stubbornness and total command of the screen. To me, no one else in this movie mattered. It was all his and he owned it.
Beirut – \m/ \m/ \m/