Directed by: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman
What It’s About: A CIA agent must extract six American diplomats out of Iran during the height of the Iranian Revolution.
Rated R (for language and some violent images)
Runtime: 120 minutes
By Aaron Sanders, Diversions Editor
After a prolonged streak of less-than-noteworthy performances, actor/screenwriter Ben Affleck turned his attention to directing with his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. He followed up the critical acclaim and accolades of this film with the equally good “cops and robbers” film The Town. This year, Ben Affleck releases his third film Argo and it is his most satisfying work yet.
Argo takes place during the height of the Iranian revolution during the Jimmy Carter presidential administration. As the revolution reaches a boiling point, the American Embassy is overrun by a mob of rebels, forcing six lucky Americans to seek refuge with the Canadian ambassador. When news of the escape reaches American authorities, the CIA employs “exfiltration” specialist Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) to get them out without alerting the now-hostile Iranian government. The CIA, despite Mendez’s specific skill set, struggles to produce a viable course of action; it even goes so far as to consider parachuting bicycles into Iran for the six Americans to bike themselves 300 miles out of hostile territory.
One night, when watching The Planet of the Apes with his son, Mendez arrives at the idea to go into Iran as a Canadian film producer for a Star Wars rip-off called Argo and leave Iran with the six Americans acting as his Canadian film crew. He proceeds to go to Hollywood seeking support for his fake movie and recruits make-up artists John Chambers (John Goodman) and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). What then transpires is an exhibition of unflinching suspense as Tony Mendez attempts to baffle the Iranian government into believing his and the other hostages’ aliases.
Ben Affleck’s third directorial effort is the epitome of modern film at its finest. From the spot-on screenplay to the grainy, gritty cinematography to the painstaking feats of suspense, Argo asserts itself as a movie for movies.
In Mendez’s plights through Iran and Lebanon, he comes across a multitude of foreigners who are suspicious of, and equally ecstatic about, his fake movie. In one particular scene, Mendez and the rest of the hostages are pulled aside by airport security for inspection of their so-called film, which at first appears to be inspired by suspicion of fraud, but is actually done out of curiosity. A childish excitement washes over the guards when they are given the storyboards for the film, as a gift from Mendez, which shows the allure of the movies is more universal than one would think.
While Argo is not a character study, it features a cast of characters who refrain from becoming caricatures, although Alan Arkin’s hilariously bombastic Lester Siegel could be perceived as such. Ben Affleck portrays Tony Mendez as a rather dry, yet likable protagonist who understands that the failure of his mission could mean the torture and execution of the hostages and of himself.
In the context of the current “Best Picture” frontrunners (The Master, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Silver Linings Playbook), Argo stands its ground and then some.
Argo is a display of masterful filmmaking and is a must-see movie of the fall season.
10/10
Courtesy of www.killthegiggler.com and topchartmovie.com