Though it’s highly conventional and formulaic, it’s tough to argue that ‘Beirut’ isn’t an entertaining and engaging thriller.

Fueled by a well-constructed script and perhaps Jon Hamm’s finest big screen lead performance to date, it should satisfy fans of the genre with its intensity and its immersive portrait of the war-torn Lebanese capital in the midst of a civil war.

What it lacks in ambition it tries to make up for in fraught tension and authenticity, and to a point, it succeeds.

What’s it about?

Hamm plays Mason Skiles, a former U.S. diplomat who in the early 1970s while serving in pre-Lebanese Civil War Beirut sees his career and his family life all destroyed in a blur of violence and terror within his own home.

Ten years later, back stateside and trying to drown his continuing grief in work and bourbon, Skiles is called upon again by the U.S. government to return to the Middle East and negotiate the return of an American hostage.

The Beirut he returns to is a shattered husk of the “Paris of the Middle East” he left behind, divided into zones controlled by Christian militias on one side of the infamous “Green Line,” Sunni and Shia Muslim groups on the other, and Syria, Israel and the West all jockeying to influence the outcome in their favor.

Once on the ground, Skiles finds himself faced not only negotiating for someone’s life, but also the horror and pain he tried so hard a decade before to leave behind. It might help if he had back-up he could trust, but instead there are only spies, diplomats, and bureaucrats, a surprising few of whom place much value in him succeeding, or even surviving.

Though it’s the last thing he thinks he wants, Skiles at last has a chance at redemption. He just has to figure out who to trust, and how to pull off the most difficult and dangerous negotiation of his life without getting killed in the process.

Solid but predictable script

The screenplay for “Beirut” comes from Tony Gilroy, the writer behind the original “Bourne” trilogy and “Michael Clayton.” What this film has in common with those earlier works is its character-driven narrative – the film’s plot is driven by Skiles’s personal disillusionment, his warranted distrust of his handlers, her personal anguish and justifiable fear for his own life.

What holds this script back from being truly memorable is that savvy audiences who know this genre will be able to see the twists and turns coming. Gilroy surrounds his protagonist with recognizable archetypes and stock characters from other political thrillers, so while Skiles may not know who to trust within the film, people watching certainly will be able to pick out the bad eggs from the good.

Also detrimental to this film is its choice of setting, or rather, the time period Gilroy choices as his backdrop. Scenes of war-torn Beirut are at this point either all-too-familiar to Western audiences who watched that drama play out on the evening news in the late 70s and early 80s, or all-too-similar to scenes from films set in more recent Middle East conflicts.

Setting the film just a few years earlier, in the run-up to the outbreak of violence in Lebanon, when Beirut was a tourists’ playground, a city whose exterior beauty and splendor hid a powder keg of sectarian tensions, might have at least provided a fresher, less familiar and thus more interesting background.

Another tremendous turn for Hamm

Last year, Jon Hamm surprisingly stole the show with his supporting turn in “Baby Driver,” which is all the more impressive considering the collection of talent in that film.

In “Beirut,” Hamm takes center stage, and he makes the most of the opportunity, delivering the performance all his fans from his “Mad Men” days have been waiting for. He delivers a credible and engaging range of expression as the downcast yet still honest and well-meaning Stiles, someone who audiences will wind up wanting to see come out on top.

Unfortunately, while Gilroy’s script gives plenty to Hamm to work with in terms of character, it doesn’t provide much at all for anyone else. Of all the talent wasted in poorly fleshed out roles, the most egregious waste is that of Rosamund Pike, playing Skiles’s reluctant CIA handler. Thriller fans who remember Pike from her Oscar-nominated lead role in “Gone Girl” will know she’s capable of much more than she’s given to do here.

Worth seeing?

Again, for fans of Jon Hamm, “Beirut” should be must-see material, if only to enjoy seeing the guy deliver in a role that looks custom-tailored for him to play.

Fans of international thrillers might get their money’s worth here, too, though it will certainly remind them of better, more ambitious entries in the genre.

For everyone else, “Beirut” will make for a fine rental and night on the couch once it comes to home video.

Beirut

Starring Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Mark Pellegrino, Larry Pine, Shea Whigham, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Idir Chender and Jonny Coyne. Directed by Brad Anderson.
Running time: 109 minutes
Rated R for language, some violence and a brief nude image.