Tony Gilroy's thriller "Beirut", tautly directed by Brad Anderson, propels that iconic "Mad Men" tv star Jon Hamm into the long-vacant Hollywood position created in the '40s by Humphrey Bogart. It's a character persona of disillusioned, world-weary masculine presence that springs into action, however reluctantly, when absolutely necessary.
Previous IMDb reviews of this exciting film either have been premature (of the "Gee, I can't wait to see it" non-review content) or ignorantly dismissive, as if fiction had to be judged by reality standards, or location hunting be abandoned in favor of merely using the practical "real" places from the script. I guess Matt Damon in "The Martian" was somehow exempt from that latter idiotic requirement.
Several hit films come to mind, clearly "Argo" the most relevant in terms of demonstrating box office potential, and Hamm is blessed with a talented and selfless co-star in a key yet subdued role by Rosamund Pike, coincidentally having risen to stardom in "Argo" maestro Ben Affleck's "Gone Girl". The director cites Peter Weir's "The Year of Living Dangerously" as a key influence, and that's a fine source to draw from.
I appoint Hamm as the next Bogie because in addition to his classic good looks as leading man he captures here and in "Mad Men" the uncanny ability to define a film noir hero -self-divided, prone to hitting the bottle, and winning over a viewer no matter how close he comes to betraying his best moral instincts in service of self-interest. Certainly he could handle a remake of "Casablanca" (perhaps with currently hot-hot Scandi star Alicia VIkander as co-star) without much of a stretch.
Though low-budget and closer to pulp than a major Hollywood blockbuster, "Beirut" succeeds because it is fun, not because it is giving us a history lesson. The cliches of its genre and the unfortunate real-life cliches of the Middle East as a quagmire work very well in the traditional roller-coaster ride that is what Hollywood does best. Quibbling over accuracy is absurd; rather Gilroy should be commended for fashioning, over a period of several decades, a tight script that makes its historical points while firmly inhabiting the fantasy land of movies.
