Notes

* TheAlcoholic: Bennett's estranged father, who spends his old days on getting hammered. Constantly.
* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: CIA kills [[InternalReformist prince Nasir]] and prevents the coup from happening. His incompetent brother is left in power, backed by Connex money and political influence from the US government. All effort of Bob is in vein. Wasim ends up killing himself in a terrorist attack. And despite few heads rolling, the oil business is pretty much barely scratched, with rampant lobbying and open corruption being left unchecked]].
* BerserkButton: Those idiotic plans higher ops hand to Bob really piss him off. After so many years of field experience, he can clearly see how detatched from reality they are. But more importantly, their ridiculous reasoning means he will be risking his life for making the situation ''even worse''.
* ChekhovGun: The Stinger missile, which switch hands and owners all over the film, just to be detonated in the very last scene.
* ChurchMilitant: The islamic school ends up encouraging the boys into suicidal bombing. Notably, the school itself is not a terrorist cell.
* ClusterFBomb:
-->'''Mussawi''': You fucking fuck fucking fuck stupid fuck, what the fuck?!
* ColdBloodedTorture: [[spoiler: Mussawi betrays Bob and proceeds with brutal beat-down and nail snapping. God only knows how far he would go, as he was just warming up before being stopped]].
* ConspicuousCG: The gas tanker in few takes is visible as a computer render.
* TheCynic: Danny Dalton, the politician giving the infamous corruption rant. A snake would break its spine trying to follow his morality. It's especially clear when he is giving a speech to the congressional committee about politics and politicians being squeeky clean, lying throught his teeth without as much as a blink.
* DeadpanSnarker: Prince Nasir and Bryan Woodman create a great duo, each trying to out-snark the other, while still having on-point discussion.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: At least for the corporate merger subplot. The bad guy still wins, ''but'' at least a tiny dent is made and some bad apples are removed, which is still a considerable achievement for Bennett Holiday after a lot of hard work and securing his own position]].
* EveryoneHasStandards: Even the worst and most corrupt characters in the story still have their own set of morals.
* FadeToWhite: [[spoiler: The explosion in the end]].
* Fiction500: If the merger of Killen and Connex happens, they will turn into 23rd world's largest company. One of the characters notes their net income would be that of a middle-sized country.
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold[=/=]NoodleIncident: Bob did some improbable things in Beirut back in '85 and everyone keeps giving cryptic references to his actions there.
* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier:
** Bob throws a StealthInsult, in the process also testing the Arabic-speaking guy he's dealing with.
-->(in Farsi) You don't speak Farsi, do you, you son of a goat
** Woodman's co-workers make a bet he won't be able to sale their economic strategy to the emir right in front of Bryan, speaking French.
* LetMeGetThisStraight: Inverted. Bob is lecturing Dean Whiting in such manner. First he lays down basics of the situation, then explains in detail what will happen if Whitting won't step down. Then he politely asks if he got it all.
* LimitedWardrobe: We never see Bob wearing anything else than the same cheap beige suit.
* ManChild: The other prince. Everyone knows that and even he knows that. This leads to a situation when he has absolutely no problems with being used as a pawn, as long as his backers let him have his fun.
* MarriedToTheJob:
** Since he's a weary field agent and a spy, it comes with no surprise Bob is a walking epitome of this trope.
** Woodman is escaping from the death of his son into work, while his marriage is slowly crumbling in the background due to this.
* MrExposition: Dean Whiting, who explains everything Bennett needs to know in the very first scene, thus also introducting viewers to the grand scheme of things.
* NaiveNewcomer:
** Bennett Holiday, sort of. He's a competent attorney, but the scale of things and cynical ruthlessness of the oil business catches him off-guard. He gets better, all while keeping his moral compass.
** Woodman has ''a lot'' of not-so-subtle comments about oil sheiks, painting them as such, but he himself is not much better in regards of handling global politics.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Mussawi starts [[spoiler: his torture of Bob]] with one of those, beating him sensless.
* TheOldCountry: Pakistan for the Khan family, now doing menial works in Connex refinery, far away from home country.
* PoliceBrutality: The guards at the deportation office look for a slightest provocation to beat the living shit out of Wasim and his dad, [[ForTheEvulz for no real reason]].
* {{Qurac}}: The Middle East kingdom is never named. All we know about it is relatively small size, but that's it.
* TheScapegoat:
** Bob is quickly declared "rogue agent acting on his own" by CIA the very second he starts being inconvinient by the sole fact of still being alive after a botched-up operation. It only goes worse from there as the plot unravels and [[spoiler: leads to him [[CreateYourOwnVillain becoming a rogue agent for real]]]].
** [[spoiler: Danny Dalton and Sydney Hewitt end up as such in the Connex-Killen merger plotline. Extra irony points in case of Hewitt, who was notorious for scrape-goating his own assistants in the past. When Bennett turns the table on him, Sydney is left completely speechless]].
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Bryan Woodman simply walks away after [[spoiler: Prince Nasir is blown into pieces with]].
* SelfMadeMan: Jimmy Pope started out as simple oil driller. He is now a CEO of Killen, one of the largest oil companies in-universe. He laments on his grandchildren being unable to even comprehend the concept of hard work due to inherited wealth.
* ShutUpHannibal: After having to listen yet another rant by Bryan about incompetence of his country, Prince Nasir pulls an epic smack-down in return, showing that he's more than aware of all the problems and issues, but has his hands tied.
-->'''Prince Nasir:''' (after his reply silenced Woodman) Now tell me something that I ''don't'' know already.
* SmugSnake: The other prince and all the politicians. But probably nobody can beat Bob's CIA handlers.
* SoundtrackDissonance: A very calm harph piece plays while [[spoiler: the gas tanker explodes in a terrorist attack]].
* SurroundedByIdiots: Prince Nasir, who is sick of all those spendthrift morons and outright calls his brother and cousins bunch of idiots, right in front of them.
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: [[spoiler: Bob will be betrayed and tortured by Mussawi and Prince Nassir will be killed by CIA operatives using a missile]].
* UnwittingPawn:
** Bob never really cared enough to ask questions about his job for the CIA, doing a lot of dirty business for his superiors with far-reaching consequences. And it probably wouldn't even be a problem for him, if he didn't develop consciousness over all those years in the field.
** A tragic case happens when Bryan switches places in a car convoy, putting [[spoiler: prince Nasir in a single car with his wife and children, indirectly leading to the entire branch of the dynasty getting wiped out]].
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Sydney Hewitt, Bennett's current boss, is notorious for using each and every of his NumberTwo this way. [[spoiler: By the end of the story, Holiday managed to convince Jimmy Pope to sacrifice Hewitt to save the merger, instantly breaking Hewitt's smug persona]].

YMMV
* {{Narm}}: The corruption rant is so over the top cynical and delivered in such way it's very hard not to chuckle during it.
* TheScrappy: Julie Woodman comes off as extremely petty and keeps on shaming Bryan for putting work ahead of wallowing in grief with her over the death of their son. The fact Bryan has a potentially world-changing task at hands is meaningless to her, but sensless depression sounds like a fine plan to do.
* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: Oil business
* WhatAnIdiot:
** The higher ops in CIA and the Committee to Liberate Iran consider it's a good strategy to keep embargoing the country to produce counter-revolution and thus creating stable, secular, pro-western, pro-bussiness (specifically - American bussiness) government. Never mind this only makes Iranians resent America even harder and make it all that easier for their government to keep everyone united in their hate toward the USA.
** One of Bob's handlers assume that Iranian government, firmly in power and with no real opposition, will fall... because colourful clothes got banned. Bob is so confused by this open stupidity he just blinks in confusion of what he just heard.