But while the philosophy of Beirut is lacking, the film is generally entertaining.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 27, 2018

Tony Gilroy's script is intricate and intelligent, with an appropriately cynical view of US foreign relations. And Hamm makes hay with his best role since Mad Men.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2018

An enjoyably pacey spy picture, unfolding against the backdrop of a country that has imploded.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 12, 2018

At times it feels like a slightly less expensive Munich, or Homeland in artificial fabrics. Yet the performances are uniformly gritty and the script by Tony Gilroy does a nice job of balancing geopolitical nous with brisk storytelling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2018

Kudos to Anderson and Gilroy for making a low-action, dialogue-heavy geopolitical thriller in this day and age.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 10, 2018

It's Hamm's world-weary charisma that locks you in. The Negotiator proves he's got the A-list chops to join the big boys.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2018

Dyspeptic wisdoms from Hamm about survival politics in conflict zones precede the slide into chase action and ticking-bomb deadlines.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2018

Despite possessing unusually detailed context for a thriller, it's a bit like diplomatic efforts in the region: the same old story.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2018

Beirut [is] a highly efficient thriller.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 27, 2018

Beirut is a fairly standard thriller but it's tightly plotted, well-composed and there's at least one twist you genuinely don't see coming.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 27, 2018

As a personal statement it may belong more to its screenwriter and producer, Tony Gilroy...More shrewdly realistic than the average Hollywood political thriller, Beirut remains open to accusations of self-involvement.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 27, 2018

Gilroy paints a nuanced picture of the civil conflict in Lebanon, noting the U.S. and Israeli agendas at work and the inner tensions of the PLO, yet this information serves to clarify and accelerate the action.

| Apr 20, 2018

Beirut a handsomely mounted Middle Eastern Bridge of Spies I almost couldn't help but enjoy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 13, 2018

With four Bourne thrillers to his credit, it's safe to assume that screenwriter Tony Gilroy could have penned this in his sleep. He didn't.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 13, 2018

Jon Hamm adds movie-star class and a world-weary Don Draper touch to this mediocre spy thriller containing plot twists you may think are reductive of the Muslim world. You're not wrong.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 13, 2018

Beirut is as solid a film as Hamm is a performer.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 13, 2018

There are no extraneous pieces, everything fits together like a puzzle. And Hamm is that puzzle's key piece.

| Original Score: B | Apr 13, 2018

This is an old-fashioned spy thriller, and as such it succeeds.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 12, 2018

It's hardly a stretch for Hamm to play a man who's clever, disenchanted, and charismatically dissolute. But he does it as surely as he ever has, and Pike is more convincing as a Yank than she was a German in 7 Days in Entebbe.

| Apr 12, 2018

The film's biggest asset is the powerful performance by Jon Hamm as Skiles, a tortured man who struggles to find his way through a labyrinth of violence and betrayal.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 12, 2018