2012: The Year in Film: "Argo" Review.

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of this one a week before it hits theaters (it comes out Friday, October 12), and this flick has been one I've been excited for since I first saw the trailer. (Check the 2012 Movie Preview if you don't believe me.) Based on a "truth is stranger than fiction" style true story, (Best told in this Wired Story) during the Iran Hostage Crisis of '79-'80, where Iranian students and radicals stormed the American embassy during the Iranian revolution, taking 52 embassy workers hostage and holding them for 444 days. Well, the lesser known part of the story is that 6 embassy workers escaped during the storming of the embassy, simply walking out the front door and seeking refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran. As the Iranian forces desperately sought out any and all Americans still in Iran to punish and use as leverage against the American government that had long supported the brutal Shah, the CIA faced a race against time and a possible diplomatic and PR crisis.

This is a story that seems custom-made for the screen, as the CIA and other government agencies seek to formulate a plan, any plan, to get these still-hidden Americans out before they face capture and likely worse by an angry and violently anti-American Iranian regime.  CIA specialist Tony Mendez formulates a plan that seems utterly preposterous, but may be the only option - create a phony movie studio with legitimate Hollywood types and a false Star Wars rip-off, complete with a cast and a script, that's seeking to film in Iran, and all of the Americans can leave together as a Canadian film crew.  You can't make this stuff up.

With a premise like that, the primary job of the filmmaker is simply going to be to don't screw it up.  It's an amazing premise, but one that could easily descend into camp or worse simply by virtue of having to many moving parts.  You need to take your premise as serious as it actually was while still recognizing that yes, this was completely ridiculous.  The good news?  Director Ben Affleck (who is slowly but surely moving up the list of quality American filmmakers..) surely does not screw this one up.  This flick is part insider Hollywood comedy, part political thriller/race against time, but the two parts fit and make this amazing story worth telling into a legitimately great movie.

The Good:  The film moves back and forth from Hollywood to political intrigue seamlessly, and Affleck never once lets the plot get away from him.  Everything is designed to ratchet the tension to higher and higher levels, so that by the final escape attempt, you're literally on the edge of your seat.  This flick is hilarious at times (Alan Arkin and John Goodman, especially, chew up scenery and really knock their Hollywood insider roles out of the park) and almost unbearably tense at times (I think I bit off all of my fingernails during the last 45 minutes) but it seamlessly comes together into one greater whole.  The performances are more than adequate (personally, I'd have loved to have seen more of Bryan Cranston), but this flick is about pacing, about atmosphere, and about scenery.  Everything is meticulously re-created, a series of pictures during the credits will show you just HOW MUCH everyone and everything looks exactly like it was, and that labor pays huge dividends as this is a flick that looks great and is one of the more effectively entertaining adult flicks I've seen in years.  This is the kind of movie that Spielberg has been trying to make for 20 years and just can't make anymore because he's too damn sentimental.  When you're able to be THAT tense and THAT suspenseful, despite the fact that EVERYONE knows that none of the embassy staff were killed in the Iran Hostage Crisis (or, I hope they do), you're doing something right.  And this flick is doing a lot right.

 

The bad: I don't know if it's Affleck's performance or the screenplay's treatment of him, but Tony Mendez as a character could have really benefited from some meatier development.  This guy is an American hero, and the flick mainly uses him to ferry about from plot point to plot point.  He's given some anguished scenes and a small family sub-plot, but one of the greatest agents in the history of the CIA (Jimmy Carter's words) could have benefited from a more charismatic performance and meatier development.  All of the characters, in general, are slightly under-developed.  Now, I get that this is a political thriller and escape movie at its root, so character is secondary to the plot and suspense, but we don't care as much about some of these people as we should.  Note: I'm nit-picking at this point.  This is one of the best movies of the year.

In all, this is an incredibly well-done flick.  Affleck is one of the finest American filmmakers working today (he's currently 3-3 as a director, with "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town" already both winning wide acclaim), and I for one can't wait to see him continue to grow as a director.  This is total awards bait, and although it might not win a lot at the Oscars (this year's slate will be STACKED), it will certainly be nominated, and rightfully so.  This is a great film.  One of the better and more watchable films I've seen in quite some time.  The final act is near perfection.

9/10.