A movie studio, Orson Welles famously said, is the best toy a boy ever had. Far from being a boy, Ben Affleck is his own man, a distinctive actor who, in recent years, directed "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town," a couple of medium-size movies that established him as an accomplished filmmaker. Now, as director and star of "Argo," he has deployed a studio's full-scale resources on an intrinsically dramatic story, and the results are nothing less than sensational. This political thriller has it all: a suspense plot centered on Americans in mortal peril during the Iranian hostage crisis that erupted in late 1979; a stranger-than-fiction subplot that was, in fact, concocted by the CIA to effect the Americans' escape; and a movie within the movie that's all the funnier for being fake.
The crisis began when Islamist revolutionaries stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 Americans hostage. In the midst of the terror and chaos, however, six of them escaped into the streets, then took refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. It's their tale the film tells, not that of the 444-day crisis in its sprawling entirety, and what a tale it turns out to be. (The factual details, declassified by President Bill Clinton in 1997, are brilliantly embellished in the screenplay that Chris Terrio based on a Wired Magazine article by Joshua Bearman.) To rescue the six before their whereabouts are discovered, the CIA's top "exfiltration" operative, Tony Mendez—a real-life figure played by Mr. Affleck—devises a cloak-and-camera plan to sneak into Iran, give the sequestered Americans new identities as Canadian filmmakers scouting locations for a sci-fi film called "Argo," then whisk them out on a regular commercial flight from Tehran's international airport.
As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador. Video courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
It's often said of incredible but true stories that you can't make such stuff up. Sure you can; you're free to do whatever you want in the wonderful world of motion pictures. But you wouldn't want to make this story up if it weren't rooted in reality, because Tony's plan is, before anything else, utterly preposterous as well as inventive and wildly daring: "This is the best bad idea we have, sir," his superior, Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston), tells the CIA's director in a meeting at Langley headquarters.
What makes the whole thing delicious in the bargain is that the CIA really did enlist Hollywood's help in creating a sham production company to give the agency's fake movie the ring of truth. John Goodman brings his droll wit to the role of John Chambers, the Hollywood makeup artist who was, in fact, Tony Mendez's friend and co-conspirator. As the fictional director Lester Siegel, an acidulous has-been who drives a gold Rolls-Royce, Alan Arkin gets some of the best lines—it would take too many asterisks to quote the topper, which becomes a running gag—and he turns a smallish part into a thriller's antic soul.
As the hero of the enterprise, Mr. Affleck is sufficiently restrained to be believable, yet he provides enough of a star presence to sustain what is, after all, a mainstream entertainment. As the director of a large and diverse cast, he has done himself proud: "Argo" abounds in fine actors—none of them household names—who don't look like they're acting at all. Victor Garber is the Canadian ambassador, while his six involuntary houseguests are played by Tate Donovan, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishé, Christopher Denham, Clea DuVall and Rory Cochrane.
As a filmmaker working on a large canvas in a quasidocumentary style, Mr. Affleck rises to one challenge after another with a sure touch. (And with the help of such collaborators as the cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, the production designer Sharon Seymour, the editor William Goldenberg, and Alexandre Desplat, who did the original score.) Tony's crash program to teach his six frightened charges their assigned roles feels convincing and fresh. The sci-fi script, billed as a "cosmic conflagration" for the benefit of the Hollywood trade press, gets a reading by actors in full regalia at a Beverly Hills hotel during a set piece that's staged with a delightfully straight face. The action sequences, with revolutionaries on a rampage in an epic conflagration, combine news clips culled from archival sources—shades of Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings, plus a doggedly optimistic Jimmy Carter—with footage adeptly shot and directed to look archival.
The production plays fast with events of the period, but not loose. A lucid introduction puts Iran's 1979 revolution in the historical context of the 1953 coup, engineered by U.S. and British intelligence agencies, that replaced the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh with an increasingly repressive regime headed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The revolutionaries themselves are neither demonized nor romanticized; it's quite remarkable how many of the perfervid young soldiers and gimlet-eyed bureaucrats come to life, however briefly, as individuals. (It's also remarkable how the advent of the film coincides with yet another crisis involving Iran.) Most studio productions these days are about nothing but entertainment; this one treats the world of volatile politics, both at home and abroad, with mature interest and respect.
Yet it does so with a flair for showmanship. "Argo" is a movie about storytelling that tells its own story briskly and clearly; there's very little fat on the narrative bones. It's a movie about movies that savors the medium's silliness. Mr. Goodman's bottom-feeding makeup artist could be an escapee from "Ed Wood," or one of Wood's sleazy productions. After listening to Tony outline his desperate scheme, he asks: "So you want to come to Hollywood and act like a big shot without doing anything?" When Tony says "Yeah," the makeup man replies gleefully, "You'll fit right in." The script is smart about the medium's allure: Tony wouldn't have a chance of pulling his scheme off if the Iranians, like everyone else in this star-struck world, weren't instantly intrigued by the prospect of a movie being made.
And "Argo" exults in what a movie can do when its story has a compelling core. There's been no shying away from the joys of expert manipulation, no reluctance to heighten the fact-based drama with fictional inventions. What's startling is that the invented elements have been done so well. (One tolerable, perhaps inevitable, exception is a moist, uplifting coda.) Without giving any plot points away, I can tell you that a climactic scene turns on a marvelous surprise, and promise you frequent spasms of suspense that will grow almost unbearable. If you've forgotten how gratifying a Hollywood studio film can be, this is the best good idea you could ask for. -source link here.
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