Protestors storm the US Embassy
5/5
In November of 1979, the US Embassy in Tehran was taken over by Iranian revolutionaries and over 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. However, six consulate workers snuck out a back alleyway and eventually made it to the Canadian ambassador’s house. Argo tells the unbelievable true story of the joint Canadian-CIA rescue mission to get those six people out of Iran alive. Argo is without a doubt one of the best films of the year, Ben Affleck has once again outdone himself with this phenomenal film.
Ben Affleck not only directs and produces, but stars as Tony Mendez, the CIA operative who came up with a plot to rescue the six Americans from Iran. His idea is to establish a charade that the Americans are part of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie, so he would fly into Tehran and they would all leave together on fictitious Canadian passports. John Chambers (John Goodman), a Hollywood makeup artist who had worked with the CIA before, collaborates with Mendez. After they recruit producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), they buy a script, an office space for their fake production company, make business cards, and purchase add space in Vanity magazine, all under the rouse that they are making a sci-fi film called “Argo” in the style of Star Wars.
In November of 1979, the US Embassy in Tehran was taken over by Iranian revolutionaries and over 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. However, six consulate workers snuck out a back alleyway and eventually made it to the Canadian ambassador’s house. Argo tells the unbelievable true story of the joint Canadian-CIA rescue mission to get those six people out of Iran alive. Argo is without a doubt one of the best films of the year, Ben Affleck has once again outdone himself with this phenomenal film.
Ben Affleck not only directs and produces, but stars as Tony Mendez, the CIA operative who came up with a plot to rescue the six Americans from Iran. His idea is to establish a charade that the Americans are part of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie, so he would fly into Tehran and they would all leave together on fictitious Canadian passports. John Chambers (John Goodman), a Hollywood makeup artist who had worked with the CIA before, collaborates with Mendez. After they recruit producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), they buy a script, an office space for their fake production company, make business cards, and purchase add space in Vanity magazine, all under the rouse that they are making a sci-fi film called “Argo” in the style of Star Wars.
When Tony gets to Tehran, however, things begin to change. The government wants to meet the film crew on his second day in Iran, so he has to prep the six civilians on their new identities, and take them all to the high-risk Grand Bazaar where they stand out as distinctively North American. Many other complications arise throughout the unfolding of the plan, such as Washington shortening the time they have to get out of Iran, or the Islamist Revolutionaries hiring sweatshop-worker children to reassemble the shredded documents from the embassy. There are so many scenes in this film where it seems sure that the plan is going to fail, we seem almost certain that we’ll soon be watching in horror as the seven Americans are arrested and publically executed. Affleck directs with such knack for creating tension that I don’t think I stopped to take a breath for most of the climax.
Ben Affleck has shown tremendous talent as a director, first with Gone Baby Gone and the The Town, and this film is better still. He displays the talent of a far more experienced filmmaker with a strong understanding of how to tell a story truthfully and enticingly. As a lead actor, his performance is strong enough to hold everything together, but where the acting stands out is in all of the supporting performances. Bryan Cranston as Mendez’s supervisor is terrific, Arkin and Goodman are memorable and quite often funny in their embodiment of 1970s Hollywood powerhouses, Victor Garber is effective as Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, and all six of the escapees have also been well cast.
Ben Affleck has shown tremendous talent as a director, first with Gone Baby Gone and the The Town, and this film is better still. He displays the talent of a far more experienced filmmaker with a strong understanding of how to tell a story truthfully and enticingly. As a lead actor, his performance is strong enough to hold everything together, but where the acting stands out is in all of the supporting performances. Bryan Cranston as Mendez’s supervisor is terrific, Arkin and Goodman are memorable and quite often funny in their embodiment of 1970s Hollywood powerhouses, Victor Garber is effective as Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, and all six of the escapees have also been well cast.
As its based upon historical events, criticism can be expected, but in Argo I feel that most of the source material was explored and explained accurately and carefully. Yes, the film does add a few plot points for dramatic tension, or simplify the complex series of events following the Iranian revolution, but these are all minor enough that they don’t distract from the film’s central focus. This film is very far from being an over-patriotic American film, yet it does downplay Canada’s involvement in the actual operation, and the view of Iran is quite predominately negative. Yet its very real in that the audience truly feels the fear in being stormed by a mob that is burning your nation’s flag. Argo doesn’t attempt any reconciliation of the events – nor should it I suppose, given the current state of affairs in the Middle East. Affleck chooses to focus on the telling of the tense mission opposed to making this a political commentary, and in fact I think this works out for the better, masterfully telling a true story is better than trying to comment on foreign affairs that few filmmakers or audience members will fully understand.
Perhaps what the film does best is in the way it finds its tone, from the onset to the closing credits we are reminded that this drama is all real, but in between Affleck takes us to places with lighter atmospheres – such as Hollywood in the late ‘70s. The opening scene which follows the storming of the embassy is so well shot that we feel the terror of the people inside, and the escape is so intense that we sit at the edge of our seats for almost half of the film. While the film contains some humor, its most prolific and memorable moments are in the grounding of the story in its painful but amazing truth. That people came together in such a way to save the lives of six others is extraordinary, and Argo greatly succeeds in both telling a story that was not widely known, and in being a highly thrilling and moving film.
Perhaps what the film does best is in the way it finds its tone, from the onset to the closing credits we are reminded that this drama is all real, but in between Affleck takes us to places with lighter atmospheres – such as Hollywood in the late ‘70s. The opening scene which follows the storming of the embassy is so well shot that we feel the terror of the people inside, and the escape is so intense that we sit at the edge of our seats for almost half of the film. While the film contains some humor, its most prolific and memorable moments are in the grounding of the story in its painful but amazing truth. That people came together in such a way to save the lives of six others is extraordinary, and Argo greatly succeeds in both telling a story that was not widely known, and in being a highly thrilling and moving film.