Argo – review
In 1979 chaos in Iran reached a boiling point and the United States embassay was taken over. Its inhabitants were taken as hostages. Even those of us who didn’t pay attention in history class have likely heard of the Iranian hostage crisis. Argo tells the story of what happened to the six Americans at the embassy who managed to escape before being captured. Ben Affleck directed and stars in the film. He is joined on screen by Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, and Alan Arkin.
After fleeing the embassy the six Americans end up at the Canadian ambassador’s home. The US government gets word of this and begins scrambling to come up with a viable way to extract them. The situation in Tehran has deteriorated to the point where every possible option seems futile. CIA specialist Tony Mendez, played by Ben Affleck, comes up with an idea to get the Americans out by setting up a fake science-fiction movie that wants to film in Iran. According to the plan, they would push this fake movie to the news media in Hollywood to the point where people would genuinely believe that it was a real film. Then Mendez would fly to Tehran under the guise of being part of the film’s location scouting team, meet up with the six Americans, and then all fly away pretending to have finished their film scouting. There are obviously a lot of ways such a plan could go wrong.
Argo is a deeply moving film because so much of the spotlight is on individuals. The film could have easily made the mistake of focusing on big picture items going on within America or Iran but this would have largely prevented any sort of emotional connection to what was happening. Argo portrays everyone as being very human – full of worries and faults but striving towards something better. Being a film about real, historical events you know how the film ends before it begins. However, it accomplishes the rare feat of still keeping the audience gripped to the edge of their seats because the journey portrayed is exciting and moving.
Whenever films are based on a true story you are always left wondering exactly how true they really are. While inaccuracies are often purposefully made for the sake of making a better film, the amount they detract from the viewing experience can vary from “a lot” to “not at all.” One of the reasons Argo shines is because everything is presented in such a believable way your mind simply doesn’t wander off to think about if certain aspects are accurate or not. Some criticism has been raised for what some view as minimizing the efforts and risks taken by other countries involved. Regardless of what’s been declassified its probably impossible for anyone to really know 100% of what happened. The film does show Canada being heavily involved, and more specifically the ambassodor and his family who took on substantial and life threatening risk to help these six Americans. The involvement of other countries was noted to have been left out to emphasize the hopelessness of the situation.
Another minor unsettling aspect of the film has to do with the slight slant in the manner that certain historical elements were protrayed. The introductory narration presents a wonderfully rosy picture of Iran which is then torn asunder by US involvement. The film also neglects to show much of the torment and terrible conditions endured by the hostages. It all goes with the overall tone of the film that America is largely to blame while minimizing any wrongdoing by Iran. After the film ends, an audio clip by President Carter is played in which he takes credit for the peaceful return of the hostages. The reality is that under Carter’s administration a military rescue was attempted and failed resulting in the death of American servicemen. It is a widely held belief that the inability of the Carter administration to free the hostages played a big role in his defeat when he ran for re-election During the 1980 campaign Reagan took a firmer stance against Iran and ended up winning the election. The hostages were freed shortly after President Reagan took the oath of office. Luckily, as stated earlier, those problems played an extremely minuscule role in the film which was overall very good.
