Dedicated & suspenseful if unilluminating recreation from unpopular U.S. modern era

Rating: 7/10 (5 December 2012)

This reviewer still owns an original copy of Jim Steranko's Mediascene Prevue Magazine, which states in a 3-page advance story on the upcoming movie version of Roger Zelazny's novel 'Lord of Light' in mid-1980 that famed comic artist Jack Kirby would be the film's visual concept artist. Amidst some large sized blowups of Kirby's sketches, the artist (known to have been a stereotypically jovial and saucy personality in the tough, deadline-demanding comics industry trade of the time) is quoted in a strangely awed and subdued manner this time. ("This film is going to have tremendous impact on the world. It will allow Eastern and Western Man to relate to each other...I believe the way we're conceiving this film could contribute to saving the world.", {Issue 41, Vol. 2, No. 1, pg. 26}. Mr. Kirby (portrayed by Michael Parks) is practically non-existent in Ben Affleck's dramatization of the events surrounding the use of the unmade film's material by the CIA during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-80. But the resulting film--titled ARGO in tribute to agent Tony Mendez' (Affleck) retitling of "Lord of Light" to create a bogus film company team that would be a cover for 6 State Dept. employees that he would try to sneak out of Iran before they could be captured by the military and possibly killed--is a concise, decently-staged, well paced caper film that recalls quieter, purposeful, politically informed works that were quite common during the intense days of the US/Russian Cold War by directors like Martin Ritt, Alan Pakula or John Frankenheimer. Mr. Affleck as director is not quite there yet in high-technical expertise of the medium as those three but the film's low-keyed photographic color tones, good contrasts in his art direction and props as the hostages see their world of mechanics and expensive travel replaced with ancient stone, wood, and handspun fabrics and circular containment, and his crosscutting between three separate story lines begins placing his craft toward their related achievements (the bogus film production in Hollywood includes the real-life makeup artist John Chambers {John Goodman, an uncannily accurate portrayal} calling in some old friends in the industry to help out including a rough-hewn film producer {Alan Arkin} who slowly sees the mission as a way of regaining some ethical ideals he appears to have lost in himself over many years. The third storyline at the CIA with Mendez' boss {Bryan Cranston, who provides a superb moment in his performance during a bureaucratic snag during the climax} is the most directly wordy and not entirely epic of the three (Affleck laudably has several real-life personalities from Pres. Jimmy Carter's top administration as characters riding herd or clearing the increasingly difficult details of the mission yet they don't quite come across as powerful or accurate as they should {Where was Chief of Staff's Hamilton Jordan's native North Carolina accent?}). Yet the film's central narrative trajectory--with Affleck being able to keep his very numerous locations and group motions distinct and geometrically designed to bring the small group of seven people finally--to the Swiss Air boarding gate at Tehran Airport and the edge of escape and freedom. Ultimately a thriller/suspense film merely dusted by politics (answering or correcting the supposed inaccuracies and dramatic liberties would probably have required an additional hour's length minimum), Ben Affleck's ARGO does at least very respectfully illuminate in both a Hollywood-nostalgic and Washington-heroic manner a frustrating and downbeat era regarding the Middle East for many Americans where (until between the release of the remaining Iranian hostages and the death of Osama bin Laden) the good guys actually scored a victory.