Film Review: Argo (2012)

Argo review!

As the Oscars approach critics and fans alike are already screaming for Argo to take picture of the year. Argo is the mostly-true of story of Tony Mendez and his exfiltration mission to rescue 6 American embassy workers on the run from an aggressive Iranian military group. I finally got the chance to sit down and give this film my full attention and I've got to day that I was impressed. Ben Affleck has a been steadily gaining a reputation as a decent director first showing us some redeeming talent in The Town after Gone Baby Gone flopped. This film, if I'm honest, is his breakout film. Argo was Affleck's letter to the film industry that holds a clear message: he's just getting started. A tight and well directed film that tells a fantastic story. Sure, there are some issues in the writing - especially when it comes to the unfortunately flat and potentially offensive portrayal of Iranians - but this film is a harbinger for a future of Affleck films that I am very much looking forward to.

Acting

The acting was rock solid. Affleck performed brilliantly as Mendez and was really able to capture the frustrations of his character. I've also got to hand it to the overall casting of the film, John Goodman and Alan Arkin were fantastic as the hollywood contacts. Arkin in particular was phenomenal to watch, his character was exactly what you would expect, yet his performance is completely refreshing. The American refugees also, just superb casting, the actors did a great job with their roles. In the end credits each actor is juxtaposed with their historical counterpart and I've got to say that (well, most) of the resemblance's are absolutely uncanny.

Plot and Writing

Here is where things get a little bit tricky. The writing was great and the plot was entertaining, fun, and loomed with a great sense of gravity…but it suffers from what wasn't written. Some critics have pointed out the flaws in historical accuracy - I don't care, this is not a documentary it is only inspired by real events - I think that is a completely irrelevant moot point. Where the writing gets in trouble is in the portrayal and lack of depth given to the Iranian protesters. This is partially intentional I think, the lack of subtitles shows that there is a huge language barrier gap that most people seem to forget about. The unfortunate thing is that we know next to nothing about these Iranians who simply appear as mindless group thinkers and rabid in their desire to…kill Americans. Why the hell do these paramilitary groups actually care about the 6 escaped workers? They have, like, 40 other hostages for fuck's sake. The goal, at least as I saw it, was to storm the American embassy, take control and use hostages as leverage for political lobbying. They did that. Mission accomplished. These extra 6 have nothing special about them and we see absolutely no insight into the counter group's mentality that validates a search and destroy mission that climaxes with the COPS and military chasing a plane down the airport tarmac. That seems questionable at best. The thing is, this could be totally valid if I actually knew more about why these 6 were so important to the military. The lack of antagonist depth really hurts the believability of that element of the writing in a big way.

Music

The scoring for the film was all by Alexandre Desplat, a fantastic composer known for work in The King's Speech, Harry Potter, and the recent Moonrise Kingdom and Zero Dark Thirty. The scoring is solid, but very…safe. There were no risks taken here. The music serves to give the film an appropriate atmosphere and allows the acting and pacing to highlight the tension and suspense - which is fair enough. I was just underwhelmed and unimpressed that with such a daring and controversial topic, the music was so conservative. It was just one of those typical academy-award-film scores that ultimately felt uninspired.

Cinematography/Visuals

This film is marked by some great and high quality cinematography that is only accentuated by an incredible sense of pacing from the editing room. Shots were varied and usually did a very good job reflecting the mood of each sequence. I have absolutely no complaints here, just solid work all around.

Overall

As I said, this is great film with some incredible directing. I am very excited to see what Affleck works on next and I hope that he learned from his few mistakes in Argo. In all honesty, from what I've seen of the other films up for Best Picture at the Oscars, I would be more than happy to see Argo take the award. It is no masterpiece, but I am now firmly convinced that in the next few years Affleck will make a masterpiece work of film. Argo is a very solid film but just seemed to lack the risky shove that it needed.

Favorite Moment?

Easily my favorite moment is the scene in the airport at the final Iranian check point near the end of the film. The last check point is where military officers try to sniff out enemies of the country and specifically hunt for the Americans and as such is probably the highest overall point of tension. Accosted and attempting to explain that the group is a part of a film production team, Joe Stafford (played by Scoot McNairy), who had been reluctant, and the only one of the 6 not on board the escape plan, finally jumps aboard the exfiltration plan with gusto because he realizes the importance of his ability to speak Farsi and his role as the-guy-with-the-storyboard. He breaks out storyboard pictures and suddenly gets so invested in his character's character that he losses himself in how excited he is about the fake movie and the script and this otherwise lethargic and obtuse man becomes entirely animated and passionate. He manages to convince the guards and himself that he really is making a film. This is some damn fine acting, and possibly the best scene in the film. Incredibly well performed and fun to watch.

9/10

-Jay