Argo

Argo (Ben Affleck)



Affleck Brings Back 70's Cinema.

As the Iranian revolution nears a climax, a CIA specialist comes up with a risky plan to rescue six Americans who are hiding at the home of the Canadian Ambassador. The plan? A fake movie.

With two good films under his belt Ben Affleck has already solidified himself as a competent director. With Argo he ventures into the must see category. Argo is easily one of the best films of the year and reminds us of the films we use to love back in the 70's. Not only does the film look like it takes place in the 70's, but it feels like it too. Blowing the picture up to give it the grainy feel, greatly adds to the overall experience.

Multiple times I got the feeling that Affleck was trying to pull off an All The Presidents Men vibe, especially in the CIA offices and it works. While I'm sure Affleck took some liberties with the events, it never feels like any of this couldn't have happened. Affleck is a CIA operative and not once does he fire a gun, fight the bad guys or be 007. This film is 100% talking, yet is one of the most suspenseful films of the year. Where does the suspense come from? If their cover is blown, they are all dead. Can these people fake being a film crew? Does everyone make it out alive? Even if you know how the real story turns out, Affleck manages to keep the tension throughout the entire third act intact.

I do wish that Affleck would have given Canadians more credit though. They did most of the work, took most of the risk and in the film it feels as if they were babysitters while Mendez comes up with this Hollywood Option and does everything to get them out. So it does feel like Hollywood trying to take credit for something they were let in on, but that's a small gripe in a fantastic film.

Boasting an impressive cast: Ben Affleck, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, Tate Donovan, Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Rory Cochrane, Kyle Chandler and Ben Affleck staple Titus Welliver, everyone brings their A-game, no matter how small the role. Of course Affleck has to have his obligatory shirt off shot.

Argo is everything a movie should be, a great story, compelling drama and light hearted humour. Like I said earlier, it brings back the days of 70's cinema, complete with thick glasses, dorky haircuts and goofy moustaches. The film's credits put up the actors with their real person counterparts. Plus images from the film are literally taken from pictures taken during the events. It's a scary situation to be in and Affleck puts that front and centre.

Go see Argo

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I already posted my review in Movie Tab II but I can put it here too

"Argo (Affleck)- having a real hostage from this time period in the theater was really something cool. And I must say this is the best film I've seen this year. It went from tense, to comedic, and back to tense. Filled with dialouge that evoked laughs from all generations. This film also used news reels to tell the story of what was going on in the U.S. while the mission was going down. You felt the anger and frustration of a nation. The casting was superb, as you'll see by the end of the move. The crew cared about making this historically accurate. This was the best film going experience I've had in a long time. I recommend this to almost anyone who has the slightest interest in movies. Lovely score, star studded cast, and Affleck continues to impress as a director "

Seriously, wacth this

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They should put your quote on the back of the dvd cover already!!!

Good to see some positive noises about this film. I've been looking forward to Argo since reading about the true story in a great Empire article a few years ago. At the end of the piece it mentioned that the rights had been bought by a production company and I've been keeping tabs on it ever since.

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I am so sick and tired of Americans re-writing history. George Washington lost most of his battles and Benedict Arnold tried to invade Quebec but was thrown out on his ass- only to bounce back and become America’s most famous traitor. American historians and storytellers (one and the same) have been shitting on Canadians ever since we invaded their country and torched their “white” house.
In spite of what Ben Affleck says, the CIA did not save the day during the Iranian hostage crisis. It was the Canadian Ambassador and his staff that risked their lives to save Americans after another brilliant bit of American foreign policy blew up in their face.

^It's a movie, not a history lesson.

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Maybe it's time America stopped using their movies to further their political agenda.

Both are true. If you go to movies for information, you're going for the wrong reasons. That being said, it could also be argued that a lot of movies are shameless self-promotion of America, and the movie industry here seems to highly regard that kind of work (again, look at the Oscar best picture nominees). Popular and critically successful movies here play a lot more like Manhattan than Taxi Driver nowadays.

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Mubi

bluedeed, what you say is true, it's just disapointing when dedicated film makers around the world are trying to make honest films and shed light on political truths.

I really enoyed this movie. Thought that the story was superb and the movie well made. It took some cohones for the CIA operative to go into that hot spot like that and bluff his way through. He also showed great initiative and compassion not to stand down and to complete his mission .

Another nice movie in the line of rambo ;-)

Yeah...no, it's nothing like Rambo.

Argo is very good.

Is this the same Ben Affleck?

I'm confused

LOL. This comment had me real life lol'ing for like 2 mins.

wtf are you talking about dude.

Daredevil is one of my guilty pleasures. Everytime I see it on TV, I have to watch it. I dunno why.

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'In 1950, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, a secular democrat, as a prime minister. He nationalized British and U.S. petroleum holdings, returning Iran's oil to it's people. But in 1953 the U.S. and Great Britain engineered a coup d'état that deposed Mosaddegh and installed Reza Pahlavi as shah. The young shah was know for opulence and excess. His wife was rumored to bathe in milk while the shah had his lunches flown in by Concorde from Paris. The people starved.
The shah kept power through his ruthless internal police: The SAVAK. An era of torture and fear began. He then began a campaign to westernize Iran enraging a mostly traditional Shiite population. In 1979, the people of Iran overthrew the shah. The exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to rule Iran. It descended into score-settling, death squads and chaos. Dying of cancer, the shah was given asylum in the U.S.. The Iranian people took to the streets outside the U.S. embassy demanding that the shah be returned, tried and hanged.'

This is where story of Argo begins. U.S. Embassy in Iran on 4th November, 1979. Iranian protesters are breaking into embassy while American diplomats are burning all classified documents. In all that chaos six Americans managed to escape. They hid into Canadian ambassador's house and the story about their escape remained secret. Since they couldn't stay there forever a plan for their extraction was created by CIA exfiltration expert Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and a makeup man named John Chambers (John Goodman) under the supervision of CIA chief Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston). The plan was to fake a movie production with escaped Americans as Canadian crew who went in Iran to look for filming locations.

Argo is based on true events but large number of facts are distorted. For example, it is stated that British embassy turned away the six while in fact they sheltered them for a few days. Also Canadian role in operation is minimized what actually provoked a reaction from Canada and that's the reason for commentary at the end of the film about joint operation. There's also a bunch of minor distortions that were made just to pace up the story.
Opening scene, in which we see fall of embassy, is astonishing and sadly, it's Argo's peak alongside Bazzar scene. The rest of the movie is just an average drama with forced suspense in the form of multiple deus ex machina and last minute scenes that just give unnatural and cheap taste. Last 30 minutes of film are almost completely unnecessary, full of unrealistic action scenes and pathetic reactions on mission's result. Characters are also weakly developed but since the movie isn't based on them that's not a problem.
That's pretty much it of negative sides of Argo. The most positive is visual impression. Ben Affleck who both directed and embodied Tony Mendez did a solid job on both sides. Although the movie was shot mainly in U.S. and some little in Istanbul the feeling of authenticity is constant. Semi-documentary approach is great for subjects like this and wider context of happenings in Iran in 1979 are nicely narrated at the beginning of the film which was great surprise for me since a lot of critics and big part of audience proclaimed Argo an pro-American and anti-Iranian propaganda which it's definitely not. It's shown how Iranians only wanted to trial the shah Pahlavi who terrorized their country for decades and their anger towards Americans isn't strange since Americans installed Pahlavi as shah and now they were protecting him.

Only objection on Afflecks directing that I have goes to camera job. Why so many close-ups!? From two hours of film almost one hour are shaky close-ups and after some time it starts to be unbearable. Actors did what is expected from the A-list names, while Affleck proved once again that he's better behind camera than in front of it.
All in all Argo is a solid political thriller with strong elements of drama but it's far from being the movie of the year. There's absolutely nothing special about it and although it's fun to watch it's easy to forget it.

7/10

Enjoyed your review but I thought you were extremely harsh. I have watched his 3 films, Gone baby Gone, The Town and now Argo and I thought all of them were excellent but definitely Argo is his finest work so far. It really is hard to believe this all actually happened, so come on Schimo 7/10 surely at least an 8!

Argo is an excellent film, really enjoyed it. There is real moments of tension an this now a hat trick of excellent films directed by Affleck. I reviewed on the Trusted Reviewer website, check it out and i'd love to hear your comments.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Affleck, I even like him as an actor. I just don't like a big part of Argo's screenplay (but story is great) and I think that camera job was poor and if you combine that with my last sentence:
There's absolutely nothing special about it and although it's fun to watch it's easy to forget it.
You get an strong 7