In
Argo, director Ben Affleck
successfully blends history and pop culture nostalgia to create one of the best
spy films of the year, deftly jumping from genre to genre and combining
laugh-out-loud humor and nail-biting suspense in ways that shouldn’t work... but
undeniably
do. Based on a chapter from
the memoirs of real-life CIA
exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez and a WIRED Magazine article about the recently
declassified mission,
Argo tells the story of a real CIA rescue mission that
has all the hallmarks of a Jim Phelps operation from
the Mission: Impossible TVshow. It’s impossible not to think of that show, in fact (which is among the
highest compliments I can pay to a modern spy movie), watching the events of
Argo unfold. When Mendez (played by
Affleck) suggests disguising American hostages (or would-be hostages) as a
Canadian film crew scouting locations for a
Star Wars-inspired sci-fi movie to
extract them from hostile Iran, it sounds just like the zany capers Phelps
would dream up on the show. And, just like Phelps in
the early days, Mendez
goes on to select a team of non-spy professionals in their given Hollywood
fields to pull it off. Just like Phelps in
the later days, he and everyone else
wear gaudy Seventies fashions while doing it! (Mendez’s boss even gives him a
version of the standard “disavowed” warning from
Mission: Impossible,
instructing him that should he be captured, the Agency “won’t claim” him.)
Adding a dash of documentary to
its multi-genre quiver, Argo begins with a succinct history lesson detailing
America’s sordid history with Iran, including the CIA’s installation of the
puppet Shah who safeguarded U.S. oil interests while allowing his people to be
tortured. But just because we understand their anger with America doesn’t make
it any less harrowing when the film then puts us inside the American embassy in
Tehran during the early days of the Islamic Revolution as a frenzied protest
turns into an assault on U.S. sovereignty. Diplomats hasten to incinerate or
shred as many files as they can as furious Iranian students overrun the building,
seizing hostages. During this powerful opening scene, Affleck demonstrates an
impressive Paul Greengrass-like ability to thrust his audience into the center
of the action (and not just by quick-cutting and shaking the camera around
chaotically, either). You really feel these Americans’ terror as the
hostage-takers pour in.
Six terrified Americans,
however, manage to escape onto the streets of Tehran amidst the chaos. With
nowhere else to go, they end up finding refuge at the personal residence of the
courageous Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor (wonderfully played by
Alias’ Victor
Garber). And there they remain… for two and a half months. That’s when the State
Department decides to put together an exfiltration plan, initially inviting
Mendez and his Agency boss Jack O'Donnell (Brian Cranston) purely as a matter of
protocol. Mendez can’t help pick apart their faulty plans, however (State
wanted them to bicycle across the border in the middle of winter), and soon
finds himself with the responsibility to come up with a better one. Inspiration
strikes when his son directs him to a
Planet of the Apes movie on TV. There are
no more foreign teachers or aid workers left in Iran to convincingly disguise
the Americans as… but everyone knows that Hollywood movie studios will “shoot in Stalingrad, with Pol Pot directing, if it will sell tickets,” as Mendez puts it. And Iran has desert and Arabian Nights-like
locations that would lend themselves to one of the budget sci-fi epics that preponderated
in the wake of Star Wars. As O'Donnell tells the State Department, “it’s the best bad idea we’ve got.”
Mendez is authorized to set up a
fake film production, for which he recruits a pair of Hollywood insiders. One
is legendary make-up artist John Chambers (the man responsible for much of that
Apes make-up), who’s worked with the CIA before by creating disguise kits, and
the other is once big-time producer Lester Siegel, who insists that if he’s going to
produce a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit. Both characters are played
excellently, by John Goodman and a sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Alan Arkin,
respectively. While Chambers’ real name made it into Mendez’s book and the
movie, the Siegel character is
a composite of several unnamed people. As Mendez pretends to be bigshot in Hollywood (“you’ll
fit right in,” Chambers assures him), Siegel takes out trade ads and drums up
publicity for their fake sci-fi epic,
Argo, by hosting a staged reading of the
script, complete with actors in cheesy sci-fi costumes.
The whole Hollywood section has
a very
Ocean’s 11 vibe to it, and plays out largely for laughs, yet Affleck
manages to segue seamlessly from that into the visceral suspense of the actual
mission as Mendez slips into Tehran on a fake passport (by way of a brief
meeting with British Intelligence in Istanbul to collect his visa). Certain visas are needed for
entering and exiting the country, and various permits are required for a film
crew from the Ministry of Culture, all of which leads to some suspenseful and
well-executed spycraft of the sort we’re used to from fact and fiction alike. There’s
dissent among the party of Americans Mendez is there to rescue, as well, and it’s
deftly handled by the skilled actors. (Standouts include Tate Donovan, Kerry Bishé
and Scott McNairy.) Especially following a harrowing trip into the heart of the city
to sell the cover (they’re accompanied by a representative from the Ministry of
Culture, but still subjected to a torrent of anti-American demonstrations even
as they pretend to be Canadian), some of them are none too eager to accept
Mendez’s out-there plan. But there’s a ticking clock. They won’t be able to
stay in the ambassador’s house much longer… and then what? If they're discovered, the fear is they'll be publicly executed. Even though
audiences likely know the outcome going in, Affleck still manages to generate
some blistering suspense during the film’s final act. (Though he and writer Chris Terrio resort to creative license to heighten what actually happened.)
Not only do costume designer
Jacqueline West and production designer Sharon Seymour do a fantastic job of recreating
exceptional period detail in Washington, Hollywood and Tehran, but Affleck
reinforces the era by shooting in a style and aesthetic instantly evocative of
the late Seventies. The film stock is attractively grainy (he reportedly achieved
this effect by cutting his frames in two and then blowing them up), and the
studied camera movement recalls paranoid spy and conspiracy thrillers of the
era like
Scorpio,
3 Days of the Condor,
All the President's Men and
Peckinpah’s
The Killer Elite. Best of all (and setting the appropriate tone from
the film’s opening moments), there’s even a period-appropriate retro Warner
Bros. logo! (If only GK Films had followed suit and created a fake one from that
time even though they didn’t exist then; when their logo comes up after the WB
one, it sort of kills the effect.)
There’s something in
Argo to
please just about everyone. First and foremost, it’s a killer spy movie with a
very
Mission: Impossible feel and a very
Scorpio look, both of which are likely
to appeal to readers of this blog. Beyond that, it richly evokes the period in
a way likely to equally interest those who lived through it and those born
since. Then there’s also the geek nostalgia factor. Fans of those late
Seventies
Star Wars rip-offs (among whom I count myself,
Starcrash being my
favorite) will thrill to the loving Hollywood details, and likely wish that the
film had actually been made. (They’re also likely to enjoy the final shot of
the movie, which serves as a heartfelt tribute to those films and their fans.)
Fortunately, even if it wasn’t made,
Argo served a higher purpose well
chronicled here, and the implausible-but-true story of its non-making, now also
called
Argo, is an instant classic of multiple genres.
is to be believed, Mendez was something of a real-life equivalent of Mission: Impossible's Jim Phelps. Indeed, the rescue plot he came up with, which involved agents posing as a film crew shooting a fake sci-fi movie, sounds right out of that TV show. Further solidifying the connection, today the 
