Argo Fuck Yourself (In A Good Way)

Quick background: In late 1979, the Iranian Revolution succeeded in having overthrown it's hated Shah, and installing the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini in his stead. The history leading up to this is explained in the opening credits of "Argo" and boy does it make America look like crap. After World War II, America and the UK had a bunch of "puppet" dictators put into place in smaller countries all around the world. Before 1953, Iran had a democratically-elected leader who was overthrown and replaced by the Shah in a coup d'état, maintaining foreign control of the Iranian oil fields. By the late seventies, Iran had had enough and the Revolution began. At the same time, innocent Americans worked in the Iranian American Embassy which in this film is portrayed as a psudo-bus station, full of Iranians waiting for the "5:15" to America. With Iranian hatred of America at an all-time high, the embassy was stormed with fifty-two American workers taken hostage for over a year. Six lucky Americans were able to escape and spent the next seventy-nine days hiding out in the home of the Canadian ambassador, unable to leave for fear of being captured. "Argo" portrays the nail-biting plot to sneak these six out of Iran under cover of them being a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a new "Star Wars" ripoff, "Argo".

Ben Affleck wins my "Leonardo DiCaprio Comeback Kid Award" for the past five years. After being written off as an actor more concerned with being a movie star than with doing quality like his good buddy Matt Damon, Affleck started directing some actual good stuff. This, his third movie is without a doubt his best. As an actor, Affleck plays the lead, Tony Mendez, the CIA's famed master of disguise, but his real talent shows through with the directing. As the movie takes place at the end of the Seventies, Affleck made a real effort to replicate the style of films from that era, going as far as to "grainy" up the film stock to make it look like it did back then. He's got a real knack for building up his casts with some of the best character actors around, most of whom don't have more than five lines, but still it's great to see them. John Goodman and Alan Arkin anchor the first half of the film, before Affleck heads to Iran, playing John Chambers, a real life Oscar winning make up artist, and a fictional producer. They both bring such fun to what are not huge roles, that every time we get a glimpse of them after their main part in the plot is over, we're thankful for it.

This movie stands out as compared to the normal feel-good non fictional dreck Hollywood puts out, as it's obviously a labor of time and love. The period details, the quality of the acting and the lack of melodrama all puts it head and shoulders over something like "The Blind Side" or "Public Enemies". I've read that Affleck uses original footage during some of the Iranian embassy scenes, but he blends it together so well with the reenactment I had no clue. The pace is fantastic; It's one of the first films I've seen in a while that was two hours long, but didn't drag at all. Many people feel cable television has surpassed films in the quality department, but this gets very close to having the feel of a show like "West Wing". There's even scenes with a swearing chief of staff which show what "West Wing" might have looked like on HBO.

My only big problem I had with "Argo" was the third act. The actual story of the hostage escape is already so unbelievable, there was no reason to add the typical "underdog" formula to make it more suspenseful. Hours before the mission is to kick into high gear, the CIA abruptly realizes that the mission sounds unbelievable so they cancel it. Affleck is forced to not only go against orders and continue, but also convince the hostages who were already weary on the idea to begin with that it might work. This never happened and for a few minutes, all of a sudden I was watching Gordon Bombay, coach of "The Mighty Ducks" trying to convince his young hockey team that he wasn't actually insulting them to another coach and they might have a chance to win the championship. Add onto that security stoppages at the airport, missing tickets, an unanswered phone in Hollywood that needs to be answered in order to prove they're actually a film crew, and an absolutely ridiculous police car/airplane chase scene, all of which never happened, or at least not the extent they're portrayed to have have.

In the end, the enthralling real life story combined with some great actors doing their thing makes this easy to recommend. If only Hollywood could realize that if they're making a movie about a real life subject, that probably means it's interesting enough without throwing in a bunch of cliches.

Rating - 4 out of 5 stars

Random Thoughts -

All of history should be made into movies. From Ancient Rome to the modern war if Afghanistan, there are so many interesting, remarkable and unheard of stories. I'd be fine with shutting down every fictional production in order to begin a century long process of recreating stories from all of time. Can you imagine Wes Anderson directing a film about vikings? Or David Lynch doing the "Trail of Tears"?

The reenactment of the Embassy takeover is the some scary stuff. I know I'm going to be raked over coals for this, but the sight of hundreds of angry, shouting Iranians yelling in Farsi while swarming over the walls reminded me of "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes". An enemy that outnumbers you, that you can't communicate with, angry with you for reasons you don't understand is a frightening thing. Minutes after I thought of that, Affleck shows his character's son watching "Battle Of The Planet Of The Apes" which kick starts the CIA Hollywood plan, so I think I'm onto something.

The biggest obstacle in a movie like this is we all know what happened. I think there should be some sort of machine at movie theatres that remove the historical knowledge you possess about whatever movie you're about to see so you can be surprised when for instance, Lincoln frees the slaves.

There needs to be a lighthearted dramatic  show about the CIA on television.One of the earlier scenes is a meeting between the state department and CIA where various people throw out ideas as to how to rescue the six hostages. The banter and wacky plans reminded me of "Mad Men" and I bet guys in this scene like Titus Welliver, Zeljko Ivanek, Kyle Chandler, and Bob Gunton would all be willing to do it again on a weekly basis.


Next - We begin to mix up new films with older ones with Grosse Pointe Blank on 10/18th