BEIRUT (US - 2018) Directed by Brad Anderson. Written by Tony Gilroy. Cast: Jon Hamm, Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Shea Whigham, Mark Pellegrino, Larry Pine, Jonny Coyne, Douglas Hodge, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Idir Chender, Kate Fleetwood, Leila Bekhti, Hicham Ouraqa, Ahmed Said Arie, Sonia Okacha, Mohammed Attougui. (R, 109 mins) At the risk of sounding wistful or cliched, BEIRUT is the kind of movie you don't see in theaters very often these days. It's a smartly-written, mid-budget political thriller whose target audience is middle-aged adults. It's a star vehicle for Jon Hamm, whose place in pop culture history is cemented thanks to MAD MEN but who hasn't really had a breakout leading role on the big screen, instead standing out in supporting roles in films like THE TOWN and BABY DRIVER. With Hamm's biggest success being on TV and SESSION 9 and THE MACHINIST director Brad Anderson settling comfortably into hired-gun TV journeyman mode in recent years (FRINGE, TREME, BOARDWALK EMPIRE), BEIRUT almost feels like the kind of period piece project that's designed more for a limited series on HBO, FX, or Netflix. On one hand, that's a depressing commentary on the changing landscape of mainstream moviegoing over the last couple of decades that a solid piece of suspenseful escapism like BEIRUT seems like a pleasant surprise. However, in the capable hands of veteran screenwriter Tony Gilroy (the BOURNE series, MICHAEL CLAYTON, and most recently, ROGUE ONE, for which he also handled the reshoots when director Gareth Edwards was relieved of his duties), BEIRUT, which does share a few core plot ideas with 2000's Gilroy-scripted PROOF OF LIFE, is a riveting thriller about the delicate nature of political gamesmanship and double-crossing diplomacy making an already volatile region even more dangerous and unpredictable.
Opening in 1972, Mason Skiles (Hamm) has a pretty cushy gig as a US diplomat based in Beirut. He's a smooth negotiator and spends most of his time schmoozing and entertaining visiting politicians and intellectuals. He and his wife Nadia (Leila Bakhti) are hosting a dinner party when his State Department buddy Cal Riley (Mark Pellegrino) shows up with CIA officials who want to haul in Karim, a 13-year-old Palestinian orphan the Skileses are currently sponsoring and hope to adopt, for questioning. Skiles was unaware that Karim had an older brother, Abu Rajal (Hicham Ouraqa), who is being hunted by Mossad agents for his role in the Munich massacre that killed eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team. Abu Rajal has been in contact with his little brother, and Cal has photographic evidence. As Skiles attempts to placate the agents with as little disruption to his party as possible, Abu Rajal and his men storm Skiles' house, whisk Karim away, with Nadia among those killed in the ensuing skirmish.
Cut to 1982, and widower Skiles is an alcoholic wreck, living in Boston and skating by as a mediator on various local union disputes as something to do during the day until he can get to the bar in the evening. He's summoned by the State Department and told he's needed in a civil war-torn Beirut. He's offered $6500 and a passport and is instructed to be on a flight in six hours. Once on the ground in Beirut, everyone--State Department guys Gary Ruzek (Shea Whigham) and Donald Gaines (Dean Norris), and glad-handing US politician Frank Shalen (Larry Pine)--hems and haws about why he's there and why he's been provided with CIA handler Sandy Crowder (Rosamund Pike) to babysit him. Skiles has been requested by name to lead the negotiation to release a kidnapped Cal, who's being held by a splinter group of the PLO. A meet is arranged and Skiles comes face to face with the group's leader, a now-grown Karim (Idir Chender), who's threatening to kill Cal if Israel doesn't turn over his brother in exchange for Cal, and he knows Skiles is the only negotiator sharp enough to get it done. Skiles meets with multiple Israeli officials who agree to look into Abu Rajal's whereabouts and all come back with the same story: "We don't have him." Things get even more complicated, forcing Skiles to go rogue when Ruzek and Gaines reveal their true motive: making sure Cal, who's been based in Beirut for 13 years and is a walking encyclopedia of classified intel, doesn't talk about the things he knows, both on and off the books.
Given Gilroy's expertise in screenwriting, the cynical BEIRUT does a good job of keeping the copious exposition of the various Middle East conflicts as concise and succinct as possible. It also gets some terrific location work from Tangier doubling as Beirut, with some chilling atmosphere throughout as we see the almost nonchalant, business-as-usual reaction of citizens when guns and bombs go off around them. Hamm displays enough gravitas to convey Skiles' cut-the-shit attitude once he figures out that Ruzek and Gaines consider Cal expendable, even if "Mason Skiles" is a name that could only exist in a Hollywood screenplay. Likewise, we of course get the obligatory scene where the drunkard hero finally his shit together and pours all of his booze down the drain while regarding his aging visage in the mirror and pondering What I've Become, but Gilroy and Anderson aren't making a documentary here. They do, however, incorporate actual events and historical elements into a fictional story that's tense, fast-paced, and well-acted by its cast. Pike, in her second terrorism thriller in the last month after the inexplicably dance-crazed 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE, does what she can with an underwritten role (Sandy is dismissed by Gaines as a "skirt," but then Pike still isn't given that much to do other than yell at Skiles when he needs a kick in the ass), but Norris is perfectly cast as a duplicitous, untrustworthy dick with an Oscar-caliber rug, while Whigham is at his sneering best, barely tolerating Skiles' meddlesome involvement in the entire negotiation process. But BEIRUT is Jon Hamm's show from start to finish, and he proves himself a capable leading man who probably would've been better served by Hollywood movie studios if he was around in the '70s and '80s. He's displayed a gift for comedy and proven his versatility in supporting roles and ensemble feature films, and BEIRUT leaves no doubt that he can carry a movie but it's an anomaly in today's distribution model that declares everything a disappointment if it doesn't make $100 million out of the gate. BEIRUT is the kind of mid-range film that used to turn into a word-of-mouth sleeper hit in April or September and maybe make $25-$30 million and everyone would be happy. But those days are gone. It's not going to make a ton of money, but it'll enjoy a long life on streaming and cable, acquiring fans shocked that they'd never heard of it before.
STONEHEARST ASYLUM (US - 2014) Directed by Brad Anderson. Written by Joe Gangemi. Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Flemyng, Sinead Cusack, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Guillaume Delaunay, Edmund Kingsley. (PG-13, 112 mins)
With the release of his 1998 breakthrough NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, director Brad Anderson was the latest in a seemingly endless parade of Miramax's Next Big Thing wunderkinds in the '90s indie-film explosion. But the field got far too crowded to compete and since 2001's SESSION 9, Anderson has been known primarily as a suspense and/or horror filmmaker when he wasn't paying the bills by taking TV directing gigs on shows like THE WIRE, FRINGE, TREME, and BOARDWALK EMPIRE. THE MACHINIST (2004) and TRANSSIBERIAN (2008) earned Anderson significant acclaim if not mainstream success, and after misfiring with the terrible VANISHING ON 7TH STREET (2011), he rebounded with his first box office hit, the Halle Berry suspense thriller THE CALL (2013), which opened strong before falling apart and turning into a stupid revenge thriller. Anderson's latest film is the intriguing STONEHEARST ASYLUM, dumped in six US cities and on VOD by Cannon cover band Millennium with the opening credits still sporting--at least in the VOD edition--its original title, ELIZA GRAVES, which is a telling indication of how much support the film is getting from its distributor.
There's a generic "Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe" credit and STONEHEARST uses the writer's 1845 short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" as a starting point before venturing off on its own path. Poe's story, with its inmates-running-the-asylum twist, isn't enough to sustain a feature-length film, though there have been direct adaptations like Juan Lopez Moctezuma's THE MANSION OF MADNESS, aka DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON (1973) and Jan Svankmajer's LUNACY (2005), and the idea has turned up in various films over the years, such as the anthologies ASYLUM (1972) and TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973), not to mention a kickass 1976 jam by The Alan Parsons Project. Scripted by Joe Gangemi, who also wrote 2007's effective and little-seen WIND CHILL, Anderson's film takes place in the late 1890s, with Dr. Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arriving at the titular location in the middle of nowhere in rural England. He hopes to gain clinical, hands-on experience as an alienist--a specialist in asylum medication--and is to work under the facility's superintendent Dr. Silas Lamb (Anderson's TRANSSIBERIAN co-star Ben Kingsley). Almost all of Lamb's patients come from the aristocracy, dumped at the asylum by their prominent families and promptly forgotten as embarrassments and outcasts with such afflictions as epilepsy, "incurable homosexuality," and chronic masturbation ("I've never seen the harm in chronic masturbation," Lamb concedes in one of the film's numerous bits of dark humor). Lamb's unorthodox treatment of his patients allows them to basically roam free inside the facility, with close supervision by his strong-arm, Mickey Finn (David Thewlis). The sympathetic Newgate takes particular interest in the beautiful Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale), committed to Stonehearst by her father after she attacked her abusive husband, gouging out an eye and biting off an ear. Eliza claims she's not insane and Newgate believes her, but he stumbles onto a bigger problem when he discovers filthy, malnourished prisoners being kept in a dungeon underneath Stonehearst. The leader of these prisoners identifies himself as Dr. Salt (Michael Caine), and claims to be the real superintendent of Stonehearst Asylum, explaining that Lamb led a revolt among the inmates and took over, imprisoning Salt and the staff in the secret dungeon.
And with that, STONEHEARST ASYLUM is about 1/3 over and it's done with what it's going to use from Poe's story. The rest is a mostly enjoyable, old-school, atmospheric gothic chiller that suffers from a muddled, draggy middle as it stretches to nearly two hours. In keeping with the flavor of the Poe adaptations from the 1960s, this could've easily lost 20-25 minutes and been a much more efficient and effective work. Once Newgate is convinced of what Salt is telling him, Anderson and Gangemi spend far too much time with Newgate dithering around with Eliza (despite her top billing, Beckinsale is really a supporting character here, which may not have been the original intention considering it was once called ELIZA GRAVES and technically still is) and trying to convince Lamb and Finn that he's not on to them. The story takes a few genuinely unpredictable turns, such as the rationale behind Lamb's overthrow of Salt and his staff, and a twist at the end that's very well-executed even though you can more or less see something coming, as there is one very familiar and busy character actor in the cast that you know must serve more of a purpose than his one brief scene at the very beginning. STONEHEARST ASYLUM makes very good use of its dark, foreboding sets, looking very much like an old-fashioned mid '60s or early '70s period horror where you can imagine any combination of gents like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee in the roles played by Kingsley and Caine (how can you not love seeing those two working together?), with Patrick Troughton, Nigel Green, or Oliver Reed in Thewlis' role and Robert Powell, Ralph Bates, or Ian Ogilvy in place of Sturgess. Given the shoddy nature of most Millennium joints, STONEHEARST could've easily turned out like one of those numerous T&A-filled dueling Poe revivals that Roger Corman and Harry Alan Towers were cranking out in the late '80s. Surprisingly, despite shooting in Bulgaria and listing Avi Lerner as an executive producer (Mel Gibson also has a producer credit), it turned out looking quite classy for the most part. Even the visual effects and greenscreen work, done by the Swedish company Filmgate instead of Lerner's usual Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX, are well above average for a Millennium production.
As evidenced by its scant distribution, there isn't much of a market for STONEHEARST ASYLUM in today's multiplexes. It's too restrained and low-key for the Halloween crowd and not serious enough for the arthouse, but a film like this is a welcome respite from the quick-cut, shaky-cam histrionics of today's horror scene. Sturgess and Beckinsale are good, and Caine is terrific in his few scenes as the harumphing head doc trapped in a prison of his own making, but it's Kingsley who steals the film, attacking his role with gusto but holding it at just the point where one step further would take him into hammy overacting. If only its midsection weren't so lethargic and plodding, Anderson might've had a really nifty little throwback gem here. It's not scary as much as it's ominous and moody, but as it is, it's well-acted, handsomely put together, and entertaining enough that die-hard devotees of Poe, AIP, 1960s Hammer (with touches of the opulent Italian castle horrors of the likes of Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti), and 1970s Amicus will probably get more out of it than the casual moviegoer in search of cheap jump scares.
Directed by Brad Anderson. Written by Richard D'Ovidio. Cast: Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, Michael Imperioli, Michael Eklund, David Otunga, Roma Maffia, Justina Machado, Denise Dowse, Jose Zuniga. (R, 94 mins)
It's always frustrating to watch a film that's solidly, briskly, and efficiently doing its job only to have one illogical decision snowball into a calamitous chain reaction that causes the entire thing to crash and burn. That's exactly what happens with THE CALL, a high-concept suspense outing from director Brad Anderson, a long-ago indie darling (1998's NEXT STOP, WONDERLAND, 2000's HAPPY ACCIDENTS) whose 2001 cult classic SESSION 9 led to him finding his niche with thrillers like 2004's THE MACHINIST and 2008's TRANSSIBERIAN. Anderson mostly does hired-gun TV work these days (FRINGE, TREME, BOARDWALK EMPIRE, THE KILLING), and his last film, 2011's VANISHING ON 7TH STREET, was easily his worst, but for about 2/3 of its running time, THE CALL finds Anderson in fine form and reinforces the idea that genre films of this sort are indeed his true calling. But around 65 minutes in, THE CALL makes a fatal mistake from which it never recovers.
Overcoming an initially distracting wig, Halle Berry delivers a strong performance as Jordan, a veteran 911 operator at "The Hive," the centralized complex for Los Angeles emergency services and first responders (sample clumsy exposition from wide-eyed trainee: "Why do they call it 'The Hive?'"). In the opening sequence, Jordan is on the line with a teenage girl who's home alone and trying to hide from an intruder when a brief lapse in judgment ultimately leads to the girl's death. Six months later, still shattered by the mistake (the girl was hiding, the call was disconnected and the intruder was about to give up and leave, but Jordan hitting "redial" inadvertantly alerted him to the girl's location) and unable to forgive herself, Jordan pops Diazepam and works as an operator trainer behind the scenes. She's forced back onto the console when a 911 call comes in from 16-year-old Casey (Abigail Breslin), who's been abducted from a mall parking garage by a mystery man (DTV fixture and Uwe Boll vet Michael Eklund) and stashed in the trunk of his car. It's here where THE CALL really starts cooking, as Anderson and screenwriter Richard D'Ovidio focus on Jordan digging deep within herself to find the confidence to talk Casey through what's happening to her and using her wits to help her alert other motorists to her plight. Since Casey is using the disposable phone left behind at the mall by a friend who had to leave, the police can't pinpoint its location. Jordan instructs Casey to kick out the taillight and stick her arm out of it and wave. When Casey finds some paint cans in the trunk, Jordan tells her to pour the paint out of the taillight opening. At a stoplight, a motorist in the next lane (Michael Imperioli) gets a funny feeling about the missing taillight and the paint and when he tries to intervene, he ends up in the trunk of his own car with Casey when the kidnapper realizes the police are on to his vehicle and switches cars.
THE CALL is moving along at a nice clip and going just swell when it suddenly gets an urge to fix what isn't broken. It's working because the tension builds by keeping its characters interacting while trapping them in their own confined, claustrophobic spaces (Casey in the trunk, Jordan at her desk). But when Jordan ends up talking to the kidnapper and realizes that it's the same perp who killed the teenage girl six months earlier, THE CALL makes the conscious decision to shit the bed by having Jordan leave "The Hive" and take this 911 call...personal. When the cops--including Jordan's understanding, supportive boyfriend (Morris Chestnut)--get the kidnapper's identity from a partial print on a shattered chloroform bottle near his abandoned car, they visit his house and his clueless wife (Justina Machado) and find the motive for his behavior and his possible location in a photo. When a trip to that location turns out to be a dead end (they don't even turn the lights on--Chestnut walks in, looks around, and says "This is a dead end," and leaves), Jordan is unconvinced and drives out there herself. At 2:30 am. With just a flashlight.
And with that, what was a somewhat implausible but thoroughly entertaining, crackling thriller with strong, believable characters (it's also great fun watching Eklund go from cool and confident to a twitchy, blubbering mess as his day encounters one unforeseen obstacle after another) abruptly turns into a trashy, exploitative horror film with Eklund's psycho having a secret underground torture bunker where he scalps his victims and makes out with a mannequin head and touches himself because, after his turns as a post-apocalyptic cannibal in the atrocious THE DAY and a post-apocalyptic necrophile rapist in the loathsome THE DIVIDE, this is apparently what Michael Eklund does. Of course, Jordan discovers the subterrenean SAW/HOSTEL death dungeon and decides to rescue Casey, who's strapped to a table and stripped down to her bra for no other reason than to show us that, yes, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is growing up and now has ample cleavage. The jarring shift in tone is a tacky metamorphosis that ruins an otherwise exemplary nailbiter and would reek of studio exec interference and reshoots were it not for the film's last shot of Berry's Jordan pulling a Roy Scheider and using Eklund's catchphrase ("It's already done") against him. The last third of the film is a train wreck (I haven't even mentioned Casey's eye injury being badly CGI'd; really, everything has to be CGI'd now? We can't even apply practical makeup and a small prosthetic to simulate a swollen eye anymore? I'm just glad ROCKY and RAGING BULL were made when they were), but the final five minutes in particular, are so utterly, stupidly senseless and at odds with everything we've seen and learned about these characters that when the closing credits roll, you just sit there slack-jawed at the implosion of what was a pretty good movie. At one point during their phone conversation, Jordan promises Casey that she'll get her through this and that they'll go see a movie together that weekend. What a nice, believable, well-rounded ending that would've been. Instead, apropos of nothing and against all established logic, it culminates in vigilante vengeance, a cheap laugh, and red meat tossed out to the audience.
