abroparaguas.com

It’s tough to jump from TV star to marquee idol, and even most of the Hollywood vets who’ve been lucky enough to make the leap — like George Clooney and Bruce Willis — needed a few mulligans before they really found their footing on the big screen. It’s far from unusual, in other words, that the film industry hasn’t really seemed to know what to do with Jon Hamm since he started focusing on movies after Mad Men went off the air; although he certainly looks like a movie star, he’s spent the last few years waiting for his breakout film role. The sober-minded and relatively complex Beirut may not be the project that truly marks that transition, but critics say this is the type of stuff Hamm really needs more of — a movie that takes advantage of his ability to play charismatic yet damaged individuals, set against the backdrop of a gripping conflict. He stars here as Mason Skiles, a former diplomat who’s lured back into his old trade as part of an operation to help save the life of a friend he left in the titular city, and reviews describe a Tony Gilroy-scripted drama that should satisfy fans of Tony Gilroy-scripted dramas — even if this one doesn’t quite do justice to the thorny real-life conflicts that fuel its plot. Absorbing despite its flaws and elevated by strong work from Hamm and Rosamund Pike, Beirut looks like the place to be for fans of grown-up political intrigue this weekend.