Argo

Argo See this Movie! (That will seem funnier once you've seen the movie, I promise)

Tony Mendes (Ben Affleck) risks his life to save six Americans in Argo (Courtesy of Slate.com)

Ben Affleck showed the world he wasn’t just a pretty boy actor when he won an Oscar for co-penning Good Will Hunting. Recently, he further improved his reputation when he directed The Town. While the latter was undoubtedly good, it lacked the wow factor in my eyes. Before I saw Argo, I wondered if Affleck really had the chops to be considered a great director. Thankfully, in his recent release, he proved that he did.

Argo follows the story of the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979, but from a different perspective. When the U.S. Embassy was stormed by angry Iranians that were outraged at the U.S.’s sheltering of a violent Shah, six of the workers escaped and found sanctuary in the home of the Canadian ambassador. When reports reach the states that the six got out, the CIA takes action to bring the workers home, without making the Iranian people aware of the workers’ identities or location. They call in Tony Mendes (Affleck himself) to assist in concocting a plan to rescue the Americans.

With no better options, Mendes is inspired while watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes to go into Iran as a Canadian filmmaker looking for an exotic location to film, and to smuggle the fugitives out as members of his crew. With the help of a Hollywood makeup artist (John Goodman) and film producer (Alan Arkin), he acquires the script for an abandoned film project, Argo, to use as a guise to gain publicity behind his project and establish credibility for the six as members of the film crew. During the time when the plan is being formed, there are sequences when we see what is going on with the fugitives, who start to lose hope of survival and get a severe case of cabin fever.

The first hour and twenty minutes or so are mostly exposition with a few thrills and scenes of excitement. The saving grace of this extended period is Alan Arkin, who proves once again why he himself is an Oscar winner. His performance as a grumpy and sarcastic old man has been seen before, but it’s a role everyone enjoys, and adds great comic relief in a film with a rather serious subject matter.

Early speculators say this movie is the frontrunner to win Best Director for Affleck. The last forty minutes are the reason why Affleck should be recognized for his directorial efforts. This is when Tony Mendes brings the six escaped Americans to the airport to bring them home, what everything had led up to. As expected, the journey from the drop-off zone to take off isn’t exactly smooth sailing, and the thrills and tension Affleck is able to deliver to the audience is the very definition of an edge-of-your-seat experience. My words can’t praise this sequence enough. If the first eighty minutes were a 3.5/5 star movie, this part alone brought it up to the 4.5/5 stars I’m giving it.

I went into this movie with high hopes. While I did leave the theater saying “...Wow,” Argo was not without its flaws. When the hostages were all in the home of the Canadian ambassador, five of the six hostages seemed to blend together. We never got to know these people as individuals. The one character that did stick out was reluctant when Tony arrived to save them, and his redemption towards the end of the movie was surprising and fulfilling to the patient viewer. The first half left me occasionally bored. However, its rousing second act made the movie completely worthwhile.

I can’t imagine what the extended climactic scene will be like on a laptop or a TV, but I know it can’t be as effective as it was on the big screen. So, I would recommend that if you were interested in seeing this movie that you see it while it’s in theaters. If you do so, the movie as a whole will demand your attention and thus make the climax much more thrilling and rewarding.

Rating: 4.5/5