Two years ago I saw what was actually Affleck’s sophomore attempt, The Town, I made the mistake of thinking it was his directing debut. Regardless, I said I would give his next movie a try because the cliche-ridden bank-robbery movie demonstrated his potential at directing. I didn’t expect him to get an A-list assignment such as this pseudo-historical piece involving the Iranian hostage crisis. Affleck destroyed any possible objections when the trailer showed Bryan Cranston having a key role.
I’ll get back to the pseudo-historical dig later.
Other critics have liked Argo but a common thread I kept reading was complaints about Ben Affleck’s acting and/or him being in it. I disagree. He did fine. Besides, numerous well-loved directors star in their own work all the time or use surrogates…see Woody Allen and Tom Hanks. It doesn’t mean I’m joining the Affleck fan club, I just feel there’s a vibe out there wishing for the guy to fail. Pretty similar to the pettiness surrounding all the talk over John Carter‘s budget last Spring.
Since the movie is based upon a real event in 1980, I’m not spoiling anything afterwards. Hell, I remember when those six people were on the news. It was nice to finally hear something uplifting about the Iranian mess. As for the details on how it happened, I was 11 and didn’t care. I figured the Canadians forged some paperwork, said the Americans were fellow Canadians and left Iran, the end. The ambassador took a huge risk. Giving passports to non-citizens is considered as espionage so he and the Americans could be legally shot. We’d do the same to others eventually thanks to the rightward drift in the United States.
The movie begins with a quick history lesson covering the roots of Iran and America’s ongoing grudge match. I already knew this yet it’s for the average American viewer who tends to be a C+ history/civics student at best. Then it fast-forwards to the day the Iranian students storm the US embassy. While the bulk of the staff starts destroying all the overt and covert intelligence stored on the property, the six working in the visa department decide to take their chances by fleeing within a crowd of Iranian applicants. Once outside they try to get asylum from another embassy up the street. I didn’t know they tried the UK and New Zealand before Canada. Thanks a heap Brits and Kiwis. Well, the UK is off the hook because we dragged them into the Iraq quagmire and I guess New Zealand repaid us through The Lord of the Rings movies being fantastic.
Anyway, the State Department is in charge of extracting the six citizens and there’s a rush on this. The Canadians are nervous plus they don’t want to be in the same mess America is undergoing. State asks the CIA for advice as a courtesy even though they’re not particularly interested. The ambivalence wasn’t a surprise to me. People forget how distrusted “the Company” was during the Seventies. The CIA’s dirty tricks abroad and in America had come to light before Carter was elected. State’s possible extraction/rescue ideas aren’t very good: smuggling in bicycles for a 300-mile journey to Turkey; fake memberships with charities or organizations Iran has already expelled; ignorance of Iran’s weather/terrain; etc. The situation appears hopeless.
Extraction expert Mendez (Affleck’s role) has a burst of inspiration during a phone call with his son as they’re both watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Use the premise of a movie to create new identities for the six trapped in Iran. I don’t find this concept too far-fetched. The CIA operates shell companies constantly. Air America is their most famous. How else did that heroin from Vietnam end up here? They had their fingers in the animated version of Animal Farm too, why do you think the ending changed? Mendez’s idea was actually pretty feasible in 1979-80 anyway. After Star Wars took the world by storm in 1977, Sci-Fi films were all the rage in Hollywood and abroad. Look at the terrible body of work then: Message from Space, Starcrash, The Cat From Outer Space…I rest my case. Creating Canadian identities wasn’t implausible neither. Numerous Canuxploitation flicks were made throughout the Seventies by lesser Hollywood studios to provide low-cost crap to show at drive-ins and grindhouses. There’s skepticism yet as the trailer says, “it’s best worst idea they’ve got.”
Mendez goes to Hollywood and the rest is history.
Affleck succeeded with me in getting an early emotional response. When the students violate international treaties by storming our embassy, I felt pretty pissed at the Iranians. It was 33 years ago so I got over it quickly. We’ve gotten our revenge by strangling the Iranian economy with other nations’ assistance. After the initial crisis, I wasn’t worried, I knew how the story ended.
Now for my historical digs or complaints. I know it’s only a movie but Americans can be lazy, they prefer their history to be easy, digestible fictions presented through movies, TV shows and ignorant, Christo-Fascist rampant school boards.
- Canada’s role is downplayed. They may be thought of as America, Jr. yet I know they don’t blindly obey us. I’m confident the Trudeau and Clark governments had input on the operation. They were sharing the risk, they had every right.
- One song that was used to set the mood didn’t exist until 1981, the Rolling Stones’ “Little T & A.”
- I scored Mendez’s two books (one was on sale last week for 99 cents!) so I hope to find where there’s more drift beyond how many kids the real CIA guy had. Affleck took poetic license to tell the story, namely when the Iranians discovered they’ve tricked near the end and to provide personal issues to make the hero complicated. Hollywood has to ratchet up the drama and conflict since real life proves to be boring.
Argo is a movie which makes me miss having cable for about five minutes. Years ago, the History Channel used to have a programed called Hollywood v. History, a great one-hour special debunking when/where/why the movie drifts from the facts. My personal favorite covered 300 by stating what really happened at the Battle of Thermopylae; the Athenians were crucial for the Spartans’ success.
The Alamo outdid itself with the pre-show material. A trailer for Persopolis, a clip of Jimmy Carter on Face the Nation, SNL‘s song ridiculing the current president of Iran (I know how to say it, can’t spell it and I’m lazy), a Brit comedy show poking fun at Khomeni and numerous television news bits from those awful days.