Argo (2012, Ben Affleck)

Background story (source: Argo)

‘This is the Persian empire, known today as Iran. For 2500 years, this land was ruled by a series of kings, known as Shahs. In 1950, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, the secular democrat as Prime Minister. He nationalized British and US petrolium holdings, returning Iran’s oil to its people. But in 1953, the US and Great Britain engineered à coup d’Etat, they deposed Mosaddegh and installed Reza Pahlavi as Shah. The young shah was known for opulence and excess. His wife was bathed in milk while the Shah had his lunches flown in by concorde from Paris. The peole starved. The shah kept power through his ruthless internal police, the Savak. An era of torture and fear began. Then began a campaign to westernize Iran, enrgaging the mostly traditional Chiite population. In 1979, the people of Iran overthrew the shah. The exiled cleric Ayatollah Khomeini returned to rule Iran. He descended into square settling, death squads and chaos. Dying of cancer, the Shah was given an asylum in the US. The Iranian people took to the streets outside the US embassy demanding that the Shah be returned, tried and hanged.’ Based on a true story.     

November 4, 1979: Iranian militants took over the american embassy in Teheran and took the staff as hostages. However, six of them managed to escape and hide in the house of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber). A CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) is given the responsibility of exfiltrating them before the Iranians realize they are missing and find out what they look like. To do so, Mendez contacted a Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and the producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and came up with Argo, a fake canadian sci-fi film that would be the ticket to get the six diplomats out of the country. 

Ben Affleck on the set of Argo (source: Premiere.fr)

Ben Affleck has always been known for being a better director than actor. Argo is another good flick of his and I’m saying this is intelligent film making: good story telling, fairness (this is not one of those foolish US propaganda), it’s all there. The story, though sensitive,  has been handled with wit and to add the suspense throughout the film, they put some jokes to lighten the atmosphere. Of course, some inaccuracies are to be noted as far as the plot is concerned but this is still a movie and movies are mostly meant to entertain.

Quotes from the film

A guy (I don’t know his name): What is the title of your project?

Lester: Argo, the thing

Guy: Like Jason and the golden fleece or what?

Lester: No no it’s a ship, it’s a, a spaceship. It goes everywhere, it goes aaall through outspace

Guy: So it’s the argonaut?

Lester: No

So what is Argo mean?

Lester: I don’t know

You don’t know ?

Lester: It means Argo f*ck yourself