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JON Hamm knows his way around a damaged man
After playing Don Draper for seven years on Mad Men playing the role of an alcoholic negotiator is a game of Child for the American actor. 19659003] There is the physiognomy – the reflection of sweat still present on his face, the slight blur in his eyes, or waking up in the traffic lane of a parking lot, the car keeps rolling, rests next to A donut half eaten and sports a serious shadow of nine hours.
But it's really in the way Hamm drives this tortured soul into the shell of a man who has something to prove and the talents to do it that make him so irresistible to look at
Beirut A political-spy thriller directed by Brad Anderson and written by writer Bourne Tony Gilroy, Hamm plays Mason Skiles, a former diplomat turned corporate negotiator.
When we met Mason, it was 1972 and he was organizing a glamorous party at his Beirut mansion, which was bubbling and circulating among his guests, the paragon of ease and confidence. Then a betrayal followed by an unthinkable tragedy.
Flash Forward 10 years and Mason is washed, running his own shop as a business negotiator between getting lost. In a bar (because where else would it be), a man approaches him with an offer. Well, not an offer as much as a request
disguised as a guest lecturer at the American University of Beirut, a place he vowed never to return, he is recruited by the CIA to recover an American hostage taken by a marginal group badociated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mason was specifically asked because of a personal connection.
Beirut he returned to is not the one he left in 1972 with the ongoing civil war wreaking havoc on the once bustling cosmopolitan city. The oasis has been squeezed out by a dark, dusty war zone where shots are barely attracting attention and where an abandoned tanker doubles for gaming equipment.
This is a world of changing allegiances, dark agendas and the constant threat of death. decent support, including Rosamund Pike as a local CIA agent, Dean Norris as head of the CIA, Shea Whigham as a colonel and Idir Chender as a young man with personal ties to Mason .
a fairly standard thriller but it's tightly drawn, well composed and there's at least one twist you really do not see coming. Gilroy is an old man to this kind of thrillers, not only with the series Bourne but also with Proof of Life State of Play and Michael Clayton . Beirut benefits greatly from his experience, especially when it is a matter of pacing or creating a feeling of peril.
Beirut also presents an interesting though quick look on a country torn apart by only internal divisions but also external agendas that it can not control. This is not a uni-level course and he could not capture the nuance in less than two hours while he's concerned about his own power games, but that's a good point of departure for viewers wishing to find out more.
then there is Hamm. Be honest, is there anything you would not look at
★★★
Beirut ] is in cinemas from today
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