Directed by Brad Anderson and written by Tony Gilroy, Beirut follows a former US diplomat Mason Skiles, played by Jon Hamm, CIA operatives Sandy Crowder and Donald Gaines, played by Rosamund Pike and Dean Norris. Caught in the crossfires of civil war, they must send the former U.S. diplomat to Beirut to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind.
The first part of the story takes place in 1972, where Skiles, his wife and hopefully to adopted 13-year old Lebanese orphan, played by Yoau Saian Rosenberg are having a cocktail party in there home. Mason’s best friend, CIA Agent Cal Riley, played by Mark Pellegrino, arrives and seconds later terrorists attack the party with tragic results.
Ten years later and now an alcoholic working as a mediator for labor disputes in Boston, Mason gets approached by a stranger in a bar. He hands him a passport, cash, and a plane ticket along with an urgent invitation from mutual “friends” that he travel to Beirut. Grudgingly, Mason arrives in Beirut only to find that the formerly picturesque city on the sea has become a violence-ridden warzone. Mason soon discovers the real reason he’s been called back. CIA and Embassy officials Donald Gaines, Gary Ruzak, played by Shea Whigham, and Ambassador Frank Whalen, played by Larry Pine explain that terrorists have kidnapped a CIA agent. The offer Mason a mission. He negotiates a swap for the release of terrorist leader Abu Rajal, played by Hicham Ouraqa, believed to be imprisoned by Israeli secret police, in exchange for the American. The story unfolds with intrigue and competing agendas.
Under the helm of Anderson is a tight spring action thriller
You might recognize Gilroy’s name as the writer behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Before the Star Wars franchise was resurrected, he formulated his fictional script around facts on the ground including the 1984 kidnapping of CIA Station Chief William Buckley. “For me, that was very much the model for what would happen if a high-level CIA officer were kidnapped,” Gilroy says. “Buckley’s body actually turned up just as I was finishing the script and there was a lot of reporting about that case that I drew on. It was all very garish and gothic and horrifying and dramatic.”
Beirut’s central character prefigured the flawed heroes that would later anchor some of Gilroy’s best-known works. “Mason was the beginning of my fascination with characters in need of redemption, which is also true for Jason Bourne and Michael Clayton,” Gilroy says. “With Beirut, I was interested in writing about people trapped inside a political situation, while at the same time Mason is forced to confront his past and his own weakness.”
After Gilroy finished his script in 1992, numerous A-list actors and directors circled the project, known at the time as High Wire Act. It was just too hot to handle because of the authenticity of the story.
Anderson says related to the script as a great story that was well written. “I was very taken by the world of Tony’s story. I frankly didn’t know very much about Beirut, so for me, it was more the character elements that drew me in. I was fascinated with Mason as this tortured soul who’s trying to redeem himself by saving his friend. That’s a very classic dramatic sensibility.”
The featurette, trailer and clip offer an excellent idea of how good this movie is put together.
