Argo (2012)
Directed by Ben Affleck
As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.
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With the amount of time to rescue them dwindling—they fled the embassy during the raid and have been living for months in the home of the Canadian ambassador—Mendez comes up with a whackadoodle plan to pose himself and the six people as a film crew making a cheesy Star Wars knockoff called Argo.
They hilariously start reading—with terrible delivery—perhaps the most hackneyed post-Star Wars script since, well, Flash Gordon.
The title comes from an apparently risible Star Wars?knockoff screenplay used as a pretext to get six Americans out of Iran.
After flying to the West Coast, Tony meets with CIA-connected makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and curmudgeonly motormouth producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin, in fine, salty form), who set him up with a script – a Star Wars knockoff called Argo – along with a publicity campaign.
His rather nifty idea was to say they were all location scouts for a big budget Star Wars knock-off, and to support this cover he enlisted Oscar-winning makeup effects artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who had assisted the CIA before by crafting disguises on their missions.
''If I'm doing a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit,'' veteran producer Lester Siegel (a razor-sharp Alan Arkin) tells Mendez, and there are some amusing gibes as the production of the titular sci-fi epic (it's the era of Star Wars) is publicly launched to provide viable cover.
He also matches the historical era with its corresponding cinematic style, favoring a more traditional, gritty look that evokes classic ’70s touchstones like All the President’s Men (1976).
Sporting a love for movies on his sleeve, Affleck's film gives nods to the smart, entertaining and engaging thrillers from the '70s -- "All the President's Men," "Three Days of the Condor," et al. -- and playfully with B-movie science-fiction pictures of the era without ever trying to lean too hard into any specific homage.
It is his cleanest, most engrossing work to date and not only duplicates the look of the late 1970s but also recalls the movies from that era - such as Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor - with its grainy aesthetic and official subterfuge.
Affleck does, however, give himself a couple of hero shots, one of which recalls Robert Redford from Argo’s antecedent All the President’s Men.
Making clear its intentions from the start, with a 70s-style title card and an opening credits sequence full of faux print damage, Affleck’s follow-up to The Town is a love letter to the classy, serious political thrillers of yesteryear: films like All The President’s Men that strived to entertain and inform in PRECISELY EQUAL measure.
The U.S. government turns to exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez (a magnificently bearded Affleck), who comes up with a plan so crazy it just might work (that it was inspired by Battle for the Planet of the Apes should have been a concern).
The costumes, hair and sets give off a pungent ’70s scent, starting with the old-school Warner Bros. logo in the opening credits to the movie Affleck’s son watches on a small TV – Battle for the Planet of the Apes, with makeup designed by John Chambers, played by Goodman here.
He's inspired by a late night viewing of "Battle For The Planet Of The Apes" with his son to create a fake science fiction film that is looking for exotic locations, requiring a trip to Iran.
So Tony Mendez (Affleck) gets the green light for a caper so wacky it can only have been inspired by his son watching “Battle for the Planet of the Apes.”
Directed by and starring Ben Affleck , who's working from a script by Chris Terrio, "Argo" settles in to a CIA conference room and lays out all of the scenarios and cover stories that won't work to get these four men and two women out of the country before Affleck's character, Tony Mendez, finds inspiration in a TV rerun of "Battle for the Planet of the Apes."
Luckily, Mendez has an inspiration while watching, of all things, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” on television with his son.
Sporting a love for movies on his sleeve, Affleck's film gives nods to the smart, entertaining and engaging thrillers from the '70s -- "All the President's Men," "Three Days of the Condor," et al. -- and playfully with B-movie science-fiction pictures of the era without ever trying to lean too hard into any specific homage.
It is his cleanest, most engrossing work to date and not only duplicates the look of the late 1970s but also recalls the movies from that era - such as Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor - with its grainy aesthetic and official subterfuge.
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I was frequently reminded of 1995’s Apollo 13 in that we know how the whole thing will turn out, but the suspense is still borderline unbearable.
In the populist vein of Ron Howard 's “Apollo 13,” Affleck's rouser salutes the Americans (and, more offhandedly, the Canadians) who restored our sense of can-do spirit when we needed it.
In that vein, it’s very much like Ron Howard’s equally thrilling “Apollo 13,” albeit with a far more humorous bent that’s perfectly in keeping with Marx (Karl, not Groucho) and his theory on how tragedy and farce relate to history.
"Argo" is a lot like "Apollo 13" in that the outcome of the real story is public record.
Argo isn’t quite on the level of the Sidney Lumet classics to which Affleck pays stylistic homage—smart and taut as it is, it lacks the broader political vision of a film like Dog Day Afternoon .
And the pacing is exquisite, recalling such classics as Dog Day Afternoon and The Marathon Man .
That’s especially true in the terrific final act, when the film goes from “Wag the Dog”-type satire to “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Midnight Express”-style tension.
The Star Wars references not only recall the name given in the 1980s to Reagan's mooted missile-defence program, but also hark back to The Men Who Stare at Goats, a more pointedly satirical docudrama that mocks the fantasy of American military power as benign (both films were produced by Smokehouse Pictures, the company owned by George Clooney with Goats director Grant Heslov).
(As they proved with 2009’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, Clooney and Heslov have a fondness for oddball espionage.)
And, somewhat akin to "The China Syndrome," it has the distinction of having history repeat itself right as it's released.
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The plot suggests Wag the Dog — David Mamet’s 1997 political satire about a Hollywood producer inventing a foreign war to divert attention from a Presidential scandal — but in reverse.
A more optimistic take on the power of Hollywood to orchestrate a media spectacle than Barry Levinson’s “Wag the Dog,” Affleck’s tale shifts from brooding espionage to amusing farce when Mendez heads west to hire acclaimed makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and cigar-chomping producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to flesh out the plan.
Whenever they appear on the screen for their comic-relief turns, Argo turns into a cross between Wag the Dog and The Producers.
And while at times Argo resembles a reverse Wag the Dog, it never lets the audience forget that a very dangerous and very serious situation underpins everything going on.
Like “ Wag the Dog ” before it, “Argo” takes full advantage of the overlap between tradecraft and showbiz, depicting the movie industry at its most tacky, mendacious and fulsomely amoral.
That’s especially true in the terrific final act, when the film goes from “Wag the Dog”-type satire to “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Midnight Express”-style tension.
Enter John Chambers (John Goodman), a prosthetics guru whose work on simian features, for “Planet of the Apes,” earned him an Academy Award, in 1969, and whose talents the Agency has called on in the past.
As it happens, Mendez had a relationship with makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who won an honorary Oscar in 1969 for his work on "Planet of the Apes."
Mendez enlists the assistance of make-up effects artist John Chambers (John Goodman), who had won an Oscar for his work on Planet of the Apes (1968), and a fast-talking movie producer named Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin)—a fictional conceit who takes the place of Robert Sidell, another make-up effects artist who worked with Chambers—to set up a production company, secure a script and preliminary production drawings, and con the Hollywood press into printing stories about the planned production before heading to Iran.