ARGO

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Victor Garber

Running time: 120 min.

The movie was fake. The mission was real.

1979.Iran. Hostage crisis. Most people know what happened but only some know that six Americans managed to escape the hostage crisis and took shelter at the residence of Canadian Ambassador.

A rescue mission must be done. How to save them? Sometimes the craziest ideas are the best. A CIA operative named Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) have a crazy idea to make a fake movie crew being extracted from Iran using Canadian passport. The film proposed is Argo, a science fiction rip-off of Star Wars. This idea was, at first, rejected since it is too silly. Who would believe a science fiction film will be shooting in Iran at the time of hostage crisis? 

Mendez fly to the enemy's lair, Tehran, and train the six remaining embassy employees how to 'behave' the Hollywood way. To help with the cover, Mendez also cooperate with John Chambers (John Goodman) and Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), film industry insider to make everything seems legitimate. All of this is a joint cooperation between United States and Canada.

Does Mendez's plan works or the Iranian finally realized that CIA are trying to smuggle six Americans out of Tehran? It doesn't matter if you already know the ending, what matters are that Ben Affleck can bring thrills and suspense without trying to cover it with so many action scenes. Some scenes are dramatized which is normal for 'based on a true story' film, but this time it is successful in holding your breath. Just like The Town from Affleck, this one is another proof that ex-Daredevil can make a good film.

Smart and crafty, I am truly entertained by the details on how Mendez tries to make his mission success, combined with archival news clips to make the look seems real. 

The film was fake, Argo was never (or not yet) being made at all but the point is if you want people to believe the lie, you should use media to support you. In this case Argo went as far as being featured on Variety magazine, thus make it looks like that the film is about to shoot. However I wonder, would anyone perhaps in the future try to make Argo for real?