Argo (2012)

Directed by: Ben Affleck | 120 minutes | drama, history, thriller | Actors: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Kerry Bishé, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Zeljko Ivanek, Titus Welliver, Keith Szarabajka, Bob Gunton, Richard Kind, Richard Dillane, Omid Abtahi, Page Leong, Farshad Farahat, Sheila Vand, Ryan Ahern, Bill Tangradi, Jamie McShane, Matthew Glave, Roberto Garcia, Christopher Stanley

In November 1979, Iranian students occupied the US embassy in Tehran to force extradition of the refugee Shah. About 50 Americans held hostage were not released until 14 months later, after the Shah’s death – one day after Ronald Reagan took office as President of the United States. However, six embassy employees managed to flee to the home of the Canadian ambassador on the day of the raid, from which they escaped three months later as location scouts for an SF movie.

It wasn’t until 1997 that Bill Clinton released background information on that action, with Canadian passports and CIA mercenary Tony Mendez playing a key role. It is exactly the piece of little history that a filmmaker in the year 2012 is waiting for. The period then is comparable to that of today, in terms of turmoil in the Middle East: friendly became enemy states and America was the hated scapegoat. The menacing atmosphere of Khomeini’s fledgling Islamic state is superbly captured by director and protagonist Ben Affleck, who first paints a clear picture of the actual events and then unleashes his creative spirit, a daring procedure used with similar results in ‘Der Baader Meinhof Complex’.

Cinematographically, Affleck opts with Rodrigo Prieto – the cameraman of Alejandro González Iñárritu – for proven authenticity with regard to non-Western countries. As a result, the film explodes from the starting blocks, and the fact that the thriller plot develops completely according to expectations is in no way disturbing in the first half of the film. ‘Argo’ is also a near-perfect period film, in which smoking is a universal social behavior, televisions have dials and people wear extraterrestrial glasses. A moan who then falls over the fact that the Stones song ‘Little T&A’ used is of a later date. In the second half of the film, Affleck even mimics the pace of the seventies thriller, to a level that you see Dustin Hoffman jumping into the screen, so to speak.

Please note: this is a compliment; the slow progress of time makes the nervousness of the embassy employees locked up in a house feel good. Once again Affleck opts for a venture, because how credible is it that you are going to scout Tehran’s busiest bazaar location with six westerners during an Islamic revolution? That must have happened to be convincing. However, ‘Argo’ also has its downsides. Affleck the protagonist, who appears to be modeled after the main character from ‘Serpico’, lacks the right combination of talent and ambiguity from that character’s interpreter, Al Pacino. The hypothermic Tony Mendez apparently has his demons (booze? failed fatherhood?) but only manages to convince as a center of action.

Affleck could have contradicted that with a strong opponent. The real acting power is provided by the comedy duo John Goodman/Alan Arkin, who, in a supporting role, gloat about the opportunity to make a fake film to support the liberation campaign. The film motif provides some satirical entertainment for the 1980s SF hype in Hollywood and is a fun interlude. In an otherwise well-developed action thriller, the success of which is still in jeopardy with a flawed chase on the runway of Tehran Airport. For a large audience, however, what is on offer is sufficient. And the epilogue cleverly makes the distinction between fact and fiction redundant. By the way, no scene from ‘Argo’ was shot in Iran.