Just like the six diplomats who were miraculously rescued in the film, Ben Affleck may have just rescued his film career that bombed in early/mid 2000s. Not only is Argo the third great film in a row that he directed, it is also his best directorial work yet, proving that the success of Gone Baby Gone and The Town is no fluke. In his third film, not only does Affleck reaffirm his existing directing chops and even show that he has one crucial skill that not many directors possess, he also shows that he'll let nothing get in the way of delivering good story and good characters, including himself.
Argo tells the implausibly true story of how 6 American diplomats were rescued by a ludicrous scheme during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. On November 4, 1979 the US embassy in Tehran was attacked by Iranian revolutionaries and 6 American staffs managed to flee and eventually hide themselves in the Canadian ambassador's house. As months go by, their situation becomes more precarious as the Iranians start to crack down on foreign residences. Meanwhile, the CIA, lead by extraction specialist Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) managed to concoct an unlikely scheme to rescue them: by creating a cover story of a fake Hollywood movie production and the 6 Americans would pose as the Canadian film crews who are in Iran for location scouting. To help with the mission, Tony enlisted the help of the real makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who won Oscars for Planet of the Apes, and fictional producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to create the necessary publicity in Hollywood to make it look real. Their scheme was so convincing that it fooled the entire Iranian authorities and the 6 Americans escaped easily (read the article that inspired the movie here). Of course, being a suspense thriller, the movie doesn't make the hostages to escape as easily as they did in real life.
Argo tells the implausibly true story of how 6 American diplomats were rescued by a ludicrous scheme during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. On November 4, 1979 the US embassy in Tehran was attacked by Iranian revolutionaries and 6 American staffs managed to flee and eventually hide themselves in the Canadian ambassador's house. As months go by, their situation becomes more precarious as the Iranians start to crack down on foreign residences. Meanwhile, the CIA, lead by extraction specialist Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) managed to concoct an unlikely scheme to rescue them: by creating a cover story of a fake Hollywood movie production and the 6 Americans would pose as the Canadian film crews who are in Iran for location scouting. To help with the mission, Tony enlisted the help of the real makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who won Oscars for Planet of the Apes, and fictional producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to create the necessary publicity in Hollywood to make it look real. Their scheme was so convincing that it fooled the entire Iranian authorities and the 6 Americans escaped easily (read the article that inspired the movie here). Of course, being a suspense thriller, the movie doesn't make the hostages to escape as easily as they did in real life.
The best thing that Ben Affleck has done in Argo is exercising restraint on himself from hogging the spotlight and in return, allows him to focus on what really matters: letting the great characters ensemble and story speaks for themselves and navigating the tricky maze of tonal shifts that this unbelievable story requires. As good as "The Town" was, it sometime felt like it was made to be his star comeback vehicle because he got the lead role with the best ending but his limited acting was bettered by his costars like Jeremy Renner. Here, Affleck portrays Tony Mendez in a mostly subdued and low key manner, giving his most effective performance yet. But Ben Affleck doesn't forget that the real story lies in the real characters of the trapped 6 americans, the CIA and white house staffs, and the movie producers and the Iranian guards and he gives them all (the actors) fair share of screen time to shine. Affleck also chooses to film the story almost in as much as a docu-drama style by employing as much live footage from the period and having the highest quality production values that have both authentic 70s setting and great 70s films look and feel. No doubt this is perhaps helped by producer George Clooney who used similar nostalgic styles for his stellar directing debut, Good Night and Good Luck. But Ben affleck's most amazing skill as a director here is how he manages to juggle the tonal shifts that the story requires: the tension and danger in Iran that pervades the hostages, the ineffectiveness of government bureaucracy in Washington and Virginia and the sardonic cynicism of Hollywood without missing a beat. This is shown in a small scene where producer Lester complains to Tony that he can't communicate with his children about what he really does in Hollywood because it's all bullshit and Tony just silently nods in agreement, implying the work in CIA is similar too.
Eventually, the movie reaches to its suspenseful, highly tense conclusion and no contrived and forced tricks were spared to take the audience for a ride even though they never happened in real life. But then again, you're probably already rooting for the Americans to escape so much that you simply don't care and that's when Ben Affleck has done his job wonderfully.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck
Written by Chris Terrio based on the book "The Master of Disguise" by Antonio J. Mendez and "Escape from Tehran" by Joshuah Bearman
Produced by Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Kyle Chandler, Tate Donovan, Clea Duvall, Kerry Bishé, Christopher Denham, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Victor Garber, Chris Messina
