Argo
When did Ben Affleck become a decent director? He competently directed Gone, Baby, Gone and The Town. Now with Argo he’s directed a nice 70’s period piece of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
Argo is about the incredibly incredulous story of how the US got six US Iranian Embassy workers out of Iran during the Hostage Crisis in 1979. Ben Affleck as a CIA agent who specializes in extraditing US people from harrowing situations. He comes up with the craziest way to get these hostages out: a Canadian Star Wars ripoff movie, Argo. He’s going to go into Iran, scout out locations using the hostages as his “crew,” and walk right out of there. Just like Ocean’s 11.
Not a bad flick. It had me on the edge of my seat in the final third of the movie as I waited with bated breath on the escapees being busted. Except I knew that they escaped. It would’ve been known better as part of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Sort of like the crash and burn helicopter rescue. They made it and it receded from my memory until this move brought it back in glorious 70’s moustaches.
One final note, the CIA agent, Tony Mendez, is the father of Toby Mendez, the sculptor of the statues at Camden Yards.
4 of 5 stars.
