- For many people, particularly those who travel often and/or to exotic places, there are few situations more terrifying than finding yourself trapped in a country that won't allow you to leave. Honestly, I sometimes even feel that way when an international flight is delayed, and I imagine it's that much worse for people who experience ticket, passport, or visa issues. Ben Affleck's Argo capitalizes on this very natural concern by spinning the "based-on-a-true-story" tale of six Americans (Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Christopher Denham, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishé, and Rory Cochrane) hiding out at the Canadian embassy in Iran during the hostage crisis that began in the 1970's. As presented in the film, their options were to leave Iran or to die trying. Naturally, they disguised themselves as a movie crew scouting the most dangerous location in the world for a cheap Star Wars knockoff.
- As CIA plans go, this one sounds completely idiotic, but that's apparently the point. You see, there was no good reason for any American to be in Iran at that time unless they had already been taken hostage. Therefore, a palpably stupid reason to be in Iran could actually seem much more plausible than the usual cover stories, like English teacher or foreign missionary. At least that's what stoic CIA mastermind Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) tries to sell his boss, Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston), who must in turn convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc, all the way up to President Carter that this plan is the "best bad idea" they've got. If you think getting a movie made in Hollywood is tough, you should try it in Washington D.C.
- But here's where things get tricky. Presumably the Iranians would see right through a flimsy attempt, so the movie needs to actually involve a real producer, a real script, and even some real storyboards. Enter John Chambers (John Goodman), a hollywood makeup artist with past connections to CIA disguise creation. He knows a producer named Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) who possesses the right combination of nobility and chutzpah to push a scheme like this through. In one of the film's funniest scenes, Siegel snatches story rights from under the nose of another tough-minded producer (Richard Kind) by pretending to know Warren Beatty. "I took a leak next to him once at the Golden Globes," Siegel later admits. It's one thing to lie in Hollywood, but is all of this really going to work at an airport in Tehran?
- Part of the brilliance of Argo is that it sandwiches this and other surprising moments of comedy between two tremendously riveting and terrifying sequences depicting the initial storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the final escape through the airport. In both cases, the group of lesser-known actors playing the American expatriates do a fantastic job selling the tension associated with not knowing whether they're going to live through the day. While I'm no expert on Iranian history, the film also makes a commendable effort to balance the reality of U.S. and British involvement in creating the Iranian crisis with the fact that fundamentally this was a country where people could get hung publicly from cranes or shot dead on the street. Finally, much has been made in various media outlets of the fact that the tension in this allegedly "true story" was amped up at all the right times, just as the role of the CIA was embellished and the role of the Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber) was diminished. Doubtless the filmmakers, both real and fictional, would respond to such criticisms with the film's most quotable line: "Argo, fuck yourself!"
- It would be remiss of me not to point out that the legendary Jack Kirby was portrayed in this film by Michael Parks. Adrienne Barbeau also had a small roll, as did Philip Baker Hall. Oh, and Jimmy Carter read the closing lines.
- Based on a book by the real-life Tony Mendez and an article by Joshuah Bearman.
