Ben Affleck has been a leading man with credibility behind the camera as the Oscar-winning co-writer (with Matt Damon) of Good Will Hunting. Having shown promise as a director in Gone Baby Gone and then excelling in The Town, he has peaked in his craft with Argo, a thoroughly engaging, real life thriller grounded in historic fact and abetted by a superior screenplay (Chris Terrio from a news article).
On November 4, 1979 in revolutionary Iran, angry students storm the US embassy and take civilian and military hostages, but unknown to the public, six Americans escape to a nearby Canadian’s home where they remain stranded with no hope of rescue. Despite a myriad of standard tactics to spirit them out of Iran, every plan has a serious flaw, and each passing day heightens the probability of the Americans’ discovery, capture, and possible execution as spies. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), an expert at ex-filtration or the liberating of valuable government assets for the CIA. His plan is a bold, imaginative conceit: a Hollywood movie crew scouting locations in Iran while sneaking the Americans out as part of the film crew. Despite the misgivings of highly skeptical State Department and CIA officials led by Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston), the mission is given a ‘go’ with little hope of success. Compounding things is the fact that the Iranians are painstakingly sifting through the embassy’s hastily shredded documents. With the assistance of an Oscar winning makeup artist, John Chambers (John Goodman), and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), Mendez creates an elaborate, fake science fiction movie named Argo complete with a script and cast. Will this movie cover work and can Mendez get the six Americans to freedom in time? As a true story only recently declassified by the US government, these actual events lead to a breathtaking finish.
The authentic reenactment of the embassy takeover is expertly, vividly intercut seamlessly with real news footage. Affleck has a keen eye for detail, and he convincingly captures the chaos and paranoia that grips the trapped Americans. Good use of handheld camerawork adds to the authentic feel of this quasi-documentary narrative. It’s like an episode of TV’s Mission Impossible, and, in fact, this could easily have been a made-for-TV movie, but it works better on the big screen where it has maximum impact. There are more than passing similarities to Wag the Dog and its phony movie ruse.
The Anti-American sentiment and mistrust fosters a claustrophobic atmosphere as the six Americans are under great pressure. The film depicts the real threats and atrocities in the city streets including random executions. Not knowing who to trust, the Americans bicker amongst themselves with some expressing serious reservations about this unusual rescue premise while others are feeling despondent. Their fear is not unlike those of pursued Holocaust civilians in World War II.
Mendez, who risks his life to save these strangers, is also a father, and it is that relationship that frames his character in the film emotionally. Chambers and Siegel (a composite character) are patriots with big egos, and while their comic relief is welcome (including a running gag: an off-color play on the word Argo,) in an otherwise suspense-filled narrative, one wonders what truly motivates them?
The final airport sequence is unbearably tense as it ratchets up the threat, and such a relatively basic situation is executed to great effect. We know how the story will end yet it affects us in a visceral way. If the filmmakers take some dramatic license at the end, the film has earned the right to embellish the facts a bit further. After seeing their story, to see the images of the actors and their real life counterparts in the closing credits adds poignancy and credibility.
One can only hope that Affleck can excel to loftier heights with his next project. He is already in rarified air, and an Oscar nomination awaits. In Argo, he has fashioned a nail-biter that never ignores the humanity that binds us together, whether it be father and son, husband and wife, or a rescuer and his newly found friends.
***1/2 stars of ****
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