Argo - (2012) - Based (somewhat loosely) on the rescue of six Americans that escaped from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran at the beginning of the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1980. A plan to get them out under cover of a fake movie company working on a movie called "Argo". The question is always will they escaped before the Iranians unravel the story?
Three Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, the accolades are pretty impressive for this one. And with good reason. This is a great thriller. It has all the tension you could want. Ben Affleck plays the American extraction expert Tony Mendez who will have to go into Iran and pull off the deception. The six in hiding aren't all convinced that this is a good idea which raises the stakes even higher. All it will take is one slip and they will all go down. Iran at that moment in time bore entirely too many similarities to the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution. It's a great set up for the story.
It's also one of those places where you need to divide fact from fiction. The screenplay takes some serious liberties with the truth. (It also takes quite a few minor liberties but that's normal. You need to move things around sometimes for movie story telling. I have no trouble with that at all). The worst is downplaying the role of the Canadian Embassy in the rescue. President Carter has been quoted as saying "90%" of the idea behind the rescue was Canadian. And while the real Tony Mendez did do the extraction he was in Tehran for a grand total of a day and a half. Affleck tries to make up for the snub of the real heroes behind the rescue with a post-script on the movie but it comes off flat. That's unfortunate. It reinforces the perception in parts of the world that Americans are self centered egotists who need to hold the spotlight at all times.
That to one side - it's a lot of fun to watch.
Rating - **** Recommended (but read the history afterwards)
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