Argo Movie Review

Based on true events, Argo chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis-the truth of which was unknown by the public for decades. On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, a CIA “exfiltration” specialist named Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) comes up with a risky plan to get them safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies. — (C) Warner Bros.

So Argo is slow paced spy thriller movie along the lines of perhaps Tinker, Soldier, Sailor, Spy and perhaps Munich (with substantially less violence). I think the movie was good but not amazing. it got a very high rating on rotten tomatoes because I think it’s still an enjoyable movie regardless of its flaws but its flaws make the movie subpar compared to other spy movies of its genre.

The plot and the pacing of the movie are top notch, the only time I got really bored as when they were travelling to Iran but other than that I liked the planning phases, the Hollywood time, and the actual execution of the plan. I liked Ben Affleck in the role and the characters around him did an excellent job. 

There are only two major complaints of the movie are near the end.

The first is that they rely on the “down to the last minute” form of artificial suspense. The bomb maker cutting the wire with 1 second to spare kind of suspense. The scene at the airport has great suspense with them getting pulled into questioning about their passports and stuff, but then you have this stupid suspense about the Hollywood characters being stuck outside their studio because of some filming thing. That seems artificial and almost like do you really have to make the phone call thing so last minute? The final thing is that the Revolutionary Guard chase the plan out in a car and I’m not sure what the plan is… Why didn’t they just shoot the plane or something? If they show I’m sure the pilot would realize something and try to stop or SOMETHING. it was just such a gratuitous chase scene. 

Second is the only characterization of the main character as a family man. I’m not entirely sure how that fits into the rest of the movie and I feel it takes away from him as the central character in some way. I feel that Ben Affleck added it for some affinity to family stories that he has that I don’t fully comprehend. The scene at the end where he hugs his wife with the giant american flag waving in the background is just laugh out loud worthy.

The one cool thing though that they showed at the end was how a side by side comparison of the photos involving the real event and the movie and how they tried to take very much into account the iconic scenes from the movies and the characters and tried to portray them as realistically as possible. Except for the fact that the real person that Ben Affleck plays is Latino. That was funny. I was like wait what? Of course they also made his wife and children white too, that was just kind of amusing actually. 

Watch if you got nothing better to do but I wouldn’t go out of your way to see it. Better spy movies include Munich and Tinker, Soldier, Sailor, Spy.