TV-MA | 4 episodes | Drama, Thriller | 2023
The hunt for Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh ranks with that of Osama bin Laden, but it was many more years in the making. The CIA also never officially took on-the-record credit for its involvement, even though the widely reported joint operation with Mossad targeted the man considered the most prolific murderer of Americans until the September 11 attacks.
Mughniyeh never became a household name in America, but for Western intelligence services, he was public enemy No. 1. Mughniyeh’s reign of terror and the operation to take him out are chronicled in creators Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz’s four-part “Ghosts of Beirut.”
Each episode starts with the preamble: “This is a fictional account of deeply researched events,” so consider yourself reassured or forewarned. The action kicks off in 2007 Iraq, when a group of terrorists masquerading as American soldiers brazenly kidnaps four U.S. servicemen from the Karbala regional headquarters.
The series then rewinds to when it all started in 1982, with the assassination of newly elected Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel and the Israeli invasion of the country in anarchy. CIA station chief Robert Ames (Dermot Mulroney) warns of the potential long-term radicalization that could result, especially among Shia Muslims, like Mughniyeh.
However, Ames has a reputation for being a little too close to his PLO contacts, which stokes the suspicions of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. That distrust lingers throughout the series, even when the CIA and Mossad unite to run an ambitious joint operation.
Regardless, Ames’s perceived pro-Arab sympathies benefit him little when the increasingly enraged Mughniyeh (Amir Khoury in episodes 1 and 2, Hisham Suliman thereafter) masterminds his first suicide bombing.
The second episode focuses on Ames’s successor, the ill-fated Bill Buckley (the CIA officer, not the political commentator). Buckley (Garret Dillahunt) will spearhead the search for Mughniyeh, of whom little is known despite his growing influence. As the scale of Mughniyeh’s operations grows, the pressure from Washington increases, but so does the danger to Americans stationed in-country.
The final two episodes flow together more smoothly, picking up where the 2007 prologue left off. As the CIA’s point officer on Mughniyeh, Lena (Dina Shihabi) is forced to work with Teddy (Iddo Goldberg) from the Mossad.
Initially, they do not trust each other very much because of institutional rivalries. Her Lebanese heritage and terrorist cousin do not help much either. However, the fictional spies convince their bosses that the time is right to pool their resources.
It might have been more efficient to produce “Ghosts of Beirut” as a feature, focusing on Lena and Teddy’s hunt for Mughniyeh, because the stop-and-start progression from the first episode to the third lacks a unifying narrative cohesion.
Series director Greg Barker (who previously helmed the documentary “Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden”) and his co-writers Issacharoff and Raz might believe that all the background information is necessary to fully appreciate Lebanon’s violent history, but it strays a bit far afield from the thriller meat of the story.
On the other hand, viewers would have missed an outstanding performance from Dillahunt as Bill Buckley. Sadly, those who lived through the reporting of his ordeal mostly remember Buckley from the grainy photos pictured in newscasts. Dillahunt fleshes out and humanizes Buckley, which deepens the tragedy of the events that unfold.
Engaging Characters
Regardless, Shihabi and Goldberg make an engaging odd-couple team, who easily pulls viewers into the procedural details of the investigation. Mulroney is credibly measured and down-to-earth as Ames, but he is not as tall as the real-life 6-foot-3-inch CIA officer, who was a member of La Salle University’s NCAA championship men’s basketball team.Frankly, Khoury is much more chilling and intense playing the younger Mughniyeh than Suliman is as the older Mughniyeh, but arguably, that accurately reflects the ruthless terrorist’s growing complacency.
Perhaps inadvertently, “Ghosts of Beirut” tellingly contrasts the values of the U.S. and Israeli intelligence officers with those of the monsters they hunt. The former never celebrate the loss of life, not even that of Mughniyeh.
Too often, CIA officers are the villains in movies. “Ghosts of Beirut” reminds us that they are human beings who serve and sacrifice for their country. It is also interesting to see the CIA’s caution with regard to Mughniyeh’s Iranian puppet-master, Qasem Soleimani (Khalid Benchegra), who was considered absolutely off-limits in 2007 for fear of provoking the Iranian regime.
Yet President Trump successfully ordered Soleimani’s execution by drone in 2020, with no apparent repercussions, despite widespread predictions that it would launch World War III.
“Ghosts of Beirut” is indeed an uneven series, but the writing is consistently smart. Most espionage series focus on Cold War Europe, so watching spycraft in a Middle East setting is an interesting change of pace. Even with its early detours, “Ghosts of Beirut” is recommended for fans of films like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Argo.”
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