It's Hollywood To The Rescue In 'Argo'

When real espionage is shown, it tends to disappoint. After all, it's generally boring stuff about guys who collect information with not a gun drawn or a car chase in sight. Not so with “Argo.” It somehow manages to make the kind of espionage movie that feels realistic, gritty, but also suspenseful and uplifting.

The movie opens with a narrator explaining the crisis we found ourselves in 1979. The Iranian Revolution was in full swing, with the Shah in exile in the United States, and the Iranian people demanding justice. Then an angry crowd protesting outside of the American Embassy in Iran stormed it and took the people inside hostage, culminating in the Iran Hostage Crisis, wherein 52 employees were held in Iran for 444 days.

However, “Argo” focuses on a lesser-known side of the story, the full extent of which was not declassified until 1997. Unbeknownst to most people, six embassy employees managed to escape and found sanctuary at the Canadian ambassador's home. When the government and CIA discovered this, they were tasked with bringing them home. After discarding various ridiculous scenarios, the plan they eventually decided on was actually the least ludicrous option that would only work in the movies. Lucky for them.

Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed), a CIA specialist who concocts a scheme that involves the embassy employees posing as a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a fictional science fiction movie called “Argo.” After the CIA concludes that “this is the best bad idea,” Mendez heads to Hollywood, where we meet our comic relief team of producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) who make sure that the film appears to be a done deal in a town where appearance is everything.

Once their alibi is in place, Mendez must fly to Tehran, where he has to contend with a volatile, unpredictable environment where anti-American sentiment is high, and convince the embassy employees to trust him and a plan that is ridiculous by any standard. Time is also of the essence, seeing as how the Iranian authorities have discovered their escape and are slowly putting together the shredded evidence of their identities.

The result is an intelligent film that refuses to place the blame while remaining strong, and will keep you on the edge of your seat even if you know the ending. It feels like a throwback to a grittier time when heroes were not yet required to be impossibly strong, flashy supermen (Oh, John McClane, what has Hollywood done to you?!), and the characters feel all the more real and funny for it. The only problem is the shortcuts that are required (or not) when such a complex story is brought to the screen and maybe not giving enough credit to some people involved in the Canadian Caper, as it was called.

That said, it seems to work, and the result is an oddly uplifting movie that somehow refuses to concede its realistic tone.

Grade: A-