Argo

Plot: During the Iranian revolution in 1979, the American embassy was overrun, and six staffers escaped to the Canadian ambassador's house. Tony Mendez (Ben Afflack) sets up a back story involving a fake movie, and attempts to smuggle the refugee staffers out of the country as a film crew. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Argo makes good use of the tension of the revolution to make the hostage-taking event immediate and gripping. The over-running of the embassy is dramatic, and the actors appears to be afraid, although maybe not afraid enough. 

Ben Affleck's role is much larger than anyone else's. He acts well, but is too cool and non-emotive. Besides Affleck, only Bryan Cranson's Jack O'Donnell has a sizable part. Cranson does a great job in depicting stress and tension as he thrashes around at the CIA HQ. 

Argo creates echoes of the more recent terrorist plots and middle eastern political drama make this more immediate and poignant. 

I liked the Tehran bazaar scene which was so colorful and confrontational. I liked the way they argued with the merchants. The John Goodman and Alan Arkin scenes in Hollywood provided lightness, and made the movie a bit more realistic. I also liked the preamble where we get a bit of Iranian history that includes the 1941 revolution that brought the Shah to power. (This was a little more Americo-centric than it might have been.) The post-script where we see the real characters was pretty cool too.

There were a several plot that (I thought) were contrived Hollywood additions to add drama at the end. This is the weakest part of the movie. I did not expect a documentary, but it would be more impactful if it stayed realistic. See Even More below.

Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranson.

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Rating: 2.5 stars: Positives are the true story and revolution scenes, but downers are the plot devices to create tension that are too cumbersome to be believable, and the acting that was hit-and-miss. 

 

More: The real story was not as cut and dried as the one in the movie. Actually the people stayed in multiple locations, for example. 

Even More: [SPOILER] Three things feel too Hollywood for me; the phone ringing in Hollywood and Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) busting past the security guard to answer it on the last ring, the reservation just showing up when they are standing at the ticketing agent, and the police cars underneath the wings of the plane upon departure. Just does not feel right. If this really happened -- it would be pretty cool though. 

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