Set against the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980, Ben Afflecks Argo is a nerve-jangling footnote to the birth of Ayatollah Khomeinis Islamic Republic. The movie opens at the crest of the 1979 revolution--the storming of the US embassy in Tehran, and the escape of six diplomats to the precarious safety of the Canadian ambassadors residence. To the rescue is Tony Mendez--a composed CIA agent whose heroism remained classified until 1997--and his state-approved plan to get the stranded embassy staff out of Iran under a brazen cover story: theyre an innocent... film crew on a location hunt for the fake sci-fi blockbuster Argo. Hollywood is usually pressed into the service of the state in the name of comedy (either burying dictators in Team America: World Police or just bad news in Barry Levinsons Wag the Dog), but Argo is a true story, and the tone of Affleck's Oscar-winning script is carefully split, switching between mounting tension in consular Tehran and a satire of the Hollywood machine as fronted by Alan Arkin and John Goodman--two raffish producers hired by Mendez to reverse-engineer some convincing buzz for the Argo movie. Affleck himself takes the role of Mendez, the steady-eyed agent betting everything on Hollywoods age-old efficiency at creating a media circus for a project long before it exists. History starts out as farce and ends up a tragedy, remarks Goodman, but Argo ends on a patriotic upbeat, and doesnt reflect much on history. It politely nods at the context of Irans attitude to the West, and were told about but not shown--bar the blank rage of the revolutionary mob--Irans anger at the Westerly flow of resources under Shah Pahlavi. Instead, Argo concentrates on the eggshell complexities of deception in plain sight, including a climactic set-piece in which Mendez team must fend their way through layers of suspicious Iranian airport security--with imminent capture, execution and political calamity only on the other side of their paper-thin pretext. It may have the ring of historical escapism, but Argo holds its nerve as a great Hollywood escape. --Leo Batchelor [show more]
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Ben Affleck directs and stars in this Academy Award-winning political thriller based on real events that took place during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. In November 1979, the American embassy in Tehran is stormed by militants and 52 Americans are taken hostage. In the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to escape and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing that it is only a matter of time before they are found out and probably killed, CIA 'exfiltration' specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck) implements a life-or-death undercover operation to smuggle them safely out of the country. The film won three Oscars including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay and also received the Golden Globe Awards and BAFTAs for Best Film and Best Director.
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