--- title: "Beirut" Raises Too Many Questions It Can't Answer description: Beirut doesn't really work because the plot takes so many twists that it's all too easy to get lost, TIME's film critic writes. canonical: https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-12T10:47:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:56:40.743Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: ‘Beirut’ Raises Too Many Questions It Can’t Answer og:description: The film is satisfying enough if you think of it as a thriller og:url: https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c2f0c9a614eb409/69892d7497cdfff1096b4ee0/beirut-film-question-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Beirut og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: ‘Beirut’ Raises Too Many Questions It Can’t Answer twitter:description: The film is satisfying enough if you think of it as a thriller twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c2f0c9a614eb409/69892d7497cdfff1096b4ee0/beirut-film-question-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Beirut_ Raises Too Many Questions It Can’t Answer  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 12, 2018 10:47 AM CUT  Jon Hamm stars as Mason Skiles in director Brad Anderson's BEIRUT, a Bleecker Street release Jon Hamm stars as Mason Skiles in director Brad Anderson's BEIRUT, a Bleecker Street releaseBleecker Street  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 12, 2018 10:47 AM CUT There’s probably no clean, organized way to make a drama that opens in Beirut in 1972 and circles back to that city a decade later, after its landscape has been drastically changed by years of civil war. Perhaps that’s why _Beirut_, directed by Brad Anderson (_The Machinist_, _Transsiberian_), with a screenplay by Tony Gilroy (writer of Michael Clayton), doesn’t quite work. The plot takes so many twists and is so complicated by labyrinthine international affairs of state that it’s easy for the viewer to get lost. You also get the feeling that certain sociopolitical complexities have been ignored or elided. But if you can think of Beirut simply as a standard thriller, the lead performances are satisfying enough: Jon Hamm plays a U.S. diplomat who was stationed in the city in calmer times–he left, in despair, after his wife was killed by terrorists, only to be forced to return years later to save an endangered friend. Rosamund Pike plays a clever, indecipherable CIA employee, the cat to Hamm’s mouse. Or might it be the other way around? If you focus on the acting alone, it’s fun to watch these two circle each other–but the movie around them doesn’t bring us any closer to the heart of this aggrieved city. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/"},"headline":"Beirut Raises Too Many Questions It Can’t Answer","datePublished":"2018-04-12T10:47:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:56:40.743Z","description":"Beirut doesn't really work because the plot takes so many twists that it's all too easy to get lost, TIME's film critic writes.","url":"https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c2f0c9a614eb409/69892d7497cdfff1096b4ee0/beirut-film-question-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c2f0c9a614eb409/69892d7497cdfff1096b4ee0/beirut-film-question-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Beirut","caption":"Jon Hamm in Beirut","creditText":"Bleecker Street","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5237431/beirut-raises-questions-it-cant-answer/","name":"Beirut Raises Too Many Questions It Can’t Answer"}}]}] ```