Argo F#ck Yourself

Rating: 3/10 (14 January 2013)

Argo is not a particularly great film but tells an interesting story in a somewhat ironic fashion. Ironic because the central tenet of the tale is an imaginary movie and how Hollywood could create a lie to mask the rescue told in a way that is in itself as big a fantasy as the movie for that very rescue.
I am a big fan of Ben Affleck and enjoy his films and think he is a capable director. But sadly Argo is pretty dull and even the fake scenes made up to ratchet up any tension fall flat.
The acting is not particularly that good either. Not because the actors were at fault. Clea DuVall is a fine actress and Arkin and Goodman both excellent. But sadly the script does not give them a lot to work with. The fake scenes in the Canadian Ambassadors house are hardly riveting. Although we do get a bit of Led Zeppelin IV which showed they had some musical taste.
Afflecks character is pretty two dimensional with a bit of a sad family background thrown in to make us sympathetic. Sadly it does not work. The CIA look a bit more organised than Zero Dark Thirty but we do get the odd banging and shouting scenes at the climactic fake finale scene as they rush desperately to make the flight out of Iran.
That whole segment of the film was quite the worst part of the whole exercise and the shots of the Revolutionary Guard chasing the plane was frankly silly more than tense. Of course in reality they just turned up early in the morning and were waved with no fuss onto their escape flight and the movie cover was barely an aspect of the getaway.
Another aspect of the movie was how it makes a point that the British and New Zealand embassies turned away folks from the American embassy which was NOT remotely the case and both embassies played a part in keeping them safe. I understand that for the narrative and pace of the movie these facts were not addressed. But I don't understand why Affleck felt the need to lie about what these people did by saying they did NOT help. Why not just say nothing at all. I guess it is a sop to the uninformed American audience who like to think that their allies are so unreliable and it makes the American part in the rescue more important.
The Iranian's or Eyeranians as they have become known don't get much of a good deal either reduced to screaming lunatics rampaging around the streets hanging people from mobile cranes. But let's not forget how they ended up like this due to decades of Western interference. I am sure the vast majority of people there are decent enough folks. But America needs its boogie men and after all to be fair the hostage taking and probably rather frightening captivity of the other 50 odd Americans was not a fantasy.
Overall the lies and fantasy of Argo overwhelm the good parts of the tale and drag it into the realms of the nick of time Bourne type thriller without the car chases, shoot outs or cool martial arts fights.
Along with Zero dark Thirty and Lincoln another revisionist pap fest wrapped in red white and blue. Which is a shame as the real story was quite a decent tale on it's own but probably not as exciting.