This is not particualrly timley spy stuff. It probably could have been set during say, the Cold War and played out the same way. Leo DiCaprio really doesn't pull off the mercenary/spook/tough guy thing, but bless his heart, he does keep trying. There's some ok intense action towards the beginning, but once we settle in the movie gets a biut dull and loses it's way, getting a bit predictable. The Kingdom did action and timeliness better.
It kind of has the Western patriarchial/white man's burden themes of Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven; if seen as part of the "Ridley Scott Foreign Policy" trilogy, it's the weakest of the three.