Argo (***½)
Directed
by: Ben Affleck
Starring:
Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber
Seen:
February 9th 2013
***½ Out
of ****
I truly enjoy a good thriller,
and if the thriller can pull of a daring high-stakes heist/escape it gets even
better. When the thriller can then do all that without gunfire and tense action
it goes beyond impressing me. Argo is one such movie in a landscape where such
movies, especially ones that work so well, rarely show up, if ever. Ben Affleck
is once again flexing his creative muscle, and he keeps strengthening the
argument for him after a few years of “falling behind”, so to speak. After
co-writing Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon, and winning the Oscar for it, he
kept working in Hollywood, sometimes to not so good effect, for years. But with
his first two directorial efforts, the excellent The Town and now the brilliant
Argo, he is definitely soaring.
Argo is a recreation of true
events from November 1979 to January 1981. After the Shah of Iran was
overthrown by the much more conservative Islam under Ayatollah Khomeini, a
group of Islamist activists took over the American Embassy in Tehran. In the
chaos and confusion of the takeover, six diplomats managed to escape after
shredding a substantial amount of potentially sensitive embassy documentation.
The six escapees manage to make their way to the home of the Canadian
Ambassador (Garber) in Tehran, where they can only stay for a limited time
before the Iranians gets news of their escape as they have scores of children
rebuilding the shredded documentation from the embassy.
Meanwhile in the USA Tony Mendez
(Affleck), a CIA exfiltration specialist, is brought in for consultation on
ideas for getting the diplomats safely home. Stumped, he returns home for the
evening, where his son watches Battle for the Planet of the Apes, which
inspires a plan, one so crazy that it just might work. When he takes the plan to
his manager, Jack O’Donnell (Cranston), he is at first met with derision, but
upon discussing things – the plan is approved. Mendez and O’Donnell approach
Hollywood make-up artist and previous CIA collaborator John Chambers (Goodman),
who in turn takes them to film producer Lester Siegel (Arkin), and together
they start planning for the movie Argo – which they will film in Iran. The plan
is to go and scope out locations in Iran, meet up with the rest of their
film-crew (the 6 escapees), and return home with everyone in tow – with
documentation to prove that they all only arrived recently too.
This creates a set-up for a lot
of tension and even a small amount of stress-out comedy, or rather amusement,
as Chambers and Siegel must assist with the authenticity of the mission as
Mendez himself goes to Iran to save the diplomats. The acting and direction are
both superb and the viewer is drawn into a rich and enjoyable story of a group
of normal people taking on long odds in a very hostile environment. Every moment
of the movie feels completely authentic, and this is strengthened by end
credits comparing actual archive news footage/photographs with scenes from the
movie.
Argo is intensely tense and
highly enjoyable escapism, pun intended. Rarely will a movie with this little
action and gunfire keep you on the edge of your seat like Argo does. Ben
Affleck tells a masterful story of bravery and calculated risk-taking that will
capture anyone’s imagination. Argo is a great movie.
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