For the second half of our Easter Double Feature, the Missus and I picked up this year's Best Picture winner, Argo for our viewing pleasure- and much like Zero Dark Thirty, although you know the ending well in advance, director Ben Affleck manages to create a gripping story about 'The Canadian Caper-' a little known facet of the Iranian Hostage Crisis which saw Canada along with the CIA (with a helping hand from the UK and New Zealand, although that's not really mentioned in the film- more on that later) smuggle out six Americans who had managed to escape from the Embassy before it was taken and the hostage crisis had begun.
From the very beginning, Affleck takes great pains to set the scene correctly- opening with a brief prologue set to movie storyboards to give the view some background to the events of the Iranian Revolution and using such period artists as Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Dire Straits and The Rolling Stones as well as more minor touches like using the old school Warner Brothers logo to open the film as well as a stereotypical '70's font' for the opening credits. (Plenty of archival news footage is used throughout to add to the gritty, dirty, authentic 70s vibe that Affleck really nails quite well. He 'located' this film perfectly.)
The story opens as the crowds are growing outside the US Embassy as diplomats look on with concern. When people begin scaling the walls, there's a frantic effort to burn all classified material and destroy equipment as the American soldiers stationed at the Embassy try desperately to hold off the crowd with tear gas and smoke grenades. When the incinerator breaks down, they're forced to shred documents and as militants storm the Embassy and begin taking hostages, six diplomats (played by Tate Donovan, Clea Duvall, Christopher Denham, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishe and Rory Cochrane) manage to escape via a back door, eventually ending up at the residence of the Canadian Ambassador (Victor Garber).
As the Hostage Crisis deepens, the presence of the six diplomats remains a closely guarded secret as the State Department and the CIA start exploring options to exfiltrate them back to the United States. A CIA Exfiltration specialist by the name of Tony Menedez (Ben Affleck) is brought in to help develop a plan to get them out and is eventually inspired when watching a science fiction movie while taking on the phone with his son to make the six part of a film crew scouting location for a science fiction movie. Menedez and his Supervisor Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston) eventually call in Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) who puts them in touch with a producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and from there, the plan comes together.
Chambers, Siegel and Mendez secure a script to a science fiction movie named 'Argo', set up an entirely fake film studio, get financing, securing a production office along the way, all in the name of making it look like they're making an actual movie. Meanwhile, the six diplomats grow increasingly strained and frantic as it's revealed that the Iranian housekeeper of the Canadian Ambassador has figured out just who their houseguests are.
Mendez secures cover identities for the six and flies out to Iran via Istanbul, where the group is initially distrustful of his plan- but agrees to it, when they realize that Mendez is putting his life on the line as much as they are. A location scout to the Grand Bazaar goes badly and the six are photographed by an unseen photographer as Iranians in the Embassy get closer and closer to reassembling six shredded mugshots and disaster strikes as Washington calls to inform Mendez that the operation has been called off.
After a night thinking about it, Mendez calls his boss and tells him he's going to go through with it anyway, prompting a frantic race to get the plane tickets approved through SwissAir (something that takes a Presidential order in the movie) as Mendez and the six navigate through passport control, airport security before finally being grilled by the Revolutionary Guard at the final checkpoint. One final telephone call to the production office in Los Angeles is answered at the last possible second and despite the Iranians figuring it out and attempting to chase down the departing SwissAir flight, they're too late the six hostages escape to freedom.
Although Argo has rightfully won heaps of critical acclaim and the Best Picture Academy Award, it's only based on a true story- it's not actually supposed to be an actual portrayal of what really happened. Affleck takes some license with the actual events and that provoked some mild outrage in the UK and New Zealand as their role in getting the hostages out (they were initially hosted at the British Embassy and diplomats from New Zealand helped drive them to the airport) was completely left out. (Affleck himself has acknowledged this, thank goodness.) The film has also taken some criticism from Canadians- as they were portrayed as the junior partner in the affair while the CIA lets them take all the credit. In reality, the Canadians with an assist from the Kiwis and the British took the lead with the CIA supporting them.
The six were also in nowhere near as much danger as the movie suggests and six escaped with relative ease- I'm willing to cut Affleck a little slack on this point as the man was trying to direct a gripping political-historical thriller. He had to get tension from somewhere. While I'm somewhat irked by the fact that British and the Kiwis didn't get their due in the caper, I'm glad that Affleck acknowledged the fact that it was something he struggled with which is at least a head nod towards the fact that he had to leave some stuff out and it's relatively minor compared with monumental abomination of historical inaccuracy that was U-571.
Overall: While Zero Dark Thirty was all about the realism of the events it was portraying, you really got a sense that Affleck was about more than just realism- he wanted to tell what remains a fascinating, entertaining story about events that not many people knew about and he wanted to do so in an entertaining why. While Affleck took license with some of the events the trade off was a movie that practically vibrated with tension that only grew to almost unbearable levels as the climax of the film drew near- and, I'll admit, it made for one hell of a movie. My verdict: **** out of ****
P.S. Bonus for Six Degrees of Separation/Early Edition fans... both movies featured Kyle Chandler in totally different roles. Which is almost, but not quite as good as Kevin Becon.
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