¨If I'm going to make a fake movie, it's going
to be a fake hit. ¨
This is Ben Affleck`s third film as a director and
he`s made yet another brilliant film. Not everyone may agree that he`s a good
actor, but I think we can all agree that he`s one of the top directors of this
century. His first film Gone Baby Gone was a huge success, and he followed that
with an even greater hit: The Town. Both these films were set in Boston
(Affleck`s home town), but now Ben went out of his comfort zone and directed a
film set in Iran in the late 70`s. The general look of the film felt so real
and authentic; it was as if Affleck transported us into the past and we were
really there. The film has an authentic 70`s vibe that reminds us of other
great films from that period. I had my doubts about Argo considering the
subject matter. I didn’t think it would keep my attention for long, but I was
wrong because Affleck was able to create so much tension and suspense that I
was at the edge of my seat during most of the film. He also mixed that tension
with some humor and movie industry satire. Arkin played a movie producer and
Goodman an Oscar winning makeup artist; the scenes between both these actors
were hilarious and they were on top of their game. Those scenes were probably
among my favorite of the movie, I don’t know if I would`ve enjoyed the movie as
much as I did if it weren’t for those two supporting actors. I still think Gone
Baby Gone and The Town were both better films than Argo, but this will surely
have more success with the Academy voters. Argo will be nominated for Best Picture
and could be one of the favorites to win the Oscar.
The film is based on true events that occurred during
1979 while tension arose between the United States and Iran when Iranian
revolutionaries invaded the American embassy in Iran and took several American hostages.
Six American employees managed to secretly escape during the turmoil and found
refugee in the residence of the Canadian Ambassador. The CIA then plans a
secret mission to try to take them out of the country before the Iranians realize
that six of the employees from the Embassy are missing. Tony Mendez (Ben
Affleck), a CIA exfiltration expert, comes up with a risky plan to bring them
back home safely. He creates a fake Canadian film project and travels to Iran
with the excuse that he is looking for locations to shoot his sci-fi film
titled Argo claiming that Iran is the perfect spot. In order to make his plan believable
the CIA begins to collaborate with some trusted Hollywood people: Lester Siegel
(Alan Arkin), a film producer, and John Chambers (John Goodman), a make-up
artist. Together they prepare to produce the best fake movie Hollywood has ever
made and has everyone in the industry fall for the lie. Meanwhile at the
residence of Canadian Ambassador, Ken Taylor (Victor Garber), tension is
beginning to rise as the revolutionaries are beginning to suspect that there
might be some Americans hiding there. These Americans are Bob (Tate Donovan),
Cora (Clea DuVall), Joe (Scoot McNairy), Lee (Rory Cochrane), Mark (Christopher
Denham), and Kathy (Kerry Bishe). Tony Mendez provides them with Canadian
passports and a fake identity and has them each passing for crew members of the
film he`s producing. Bryan Cranston plays Affleck`s supervisor in the CIA who
gives him the green light for the highly risky mission.
Saying that Argo is based on a true story doesn’t
mean that everything that happened in this film was real. Of course you have
several things that were made up in order to build up the tension. This isn’t a
documentary and if you want to read about the real story there is plenty of
information about what happened in Iran. The film is based on the article
written by Joshua Bearman and the screenplay adapted by Chris Terrio. People
familiar with the story already know the outcome, but Affleck is able to maintain
the suspense and tension nonetheless. His real success here was the way in which
he was able to recreate several scenes in such a believable fashion. The amount
of attention he put into small technical details can be seen during the end
credits where we have pictures of the real events along with the scenes from
the film. Affleck also took a huge risk by mixing movie industry satire with
suspense and tension, but it paid off really well and was the highlight of the
film in my opinion. Argo is a truly satisfying film and without a doubt one of
the best films of the year thanks to the technical aspects of the film, a
strong performance from the cast, and the thrilling storytelling all supported
by the great direction of Ben Affleck.
