A well acted, produced and good paced suspense film.

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2014)

*Spoiler/plot- Argo, 2012. It's 1979, the Iranian US Embassy is taken over by Muslim extremists and protesters. All Americans are taken to be used as hostages. Six members manage to get out and are taken in by the Canadian embassy. After a few months, the 6 need to be rescued by a "Moses". And it's only a matter of time before the Iranians discover that 6 members of the embassy staff are missing. So the CIA must get them out with a plan. Tony Mendez, an ex-infiltration expert comes up with a plan involving a Hollywood film production looking for film locations in Iran. He will go in as a producer scouting for shooting locations for a movie and that the captive 6 Americans are part of the Canadian production crew. Mendez goes to Hollywood and with help from a Hollywood insider friend makes the Hollywood connection and public relations in the media. And the sci-fi movie they're producing is called 'Argo'. Eventually he goes to Iran and gets the people out.
*Special Stars- Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman. DIR: Ben Affleck *Theme- Creative people in the government can help in some dire matters.
*Trivia/location/goofs- The script used for the fake film project was based on the 1967 science fiction novel "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. In real life, makeup artist John Chambers (played by John Goodman) came up with the title "Argo" because he loved knock-knock jokes. In the film, the title becomes an off-color joke. In the movie, it was stated that both the British and New Zealand embassies in Tehran turned away the six American diplomats, leaving the Canadians as their only refuge. In fact the British embassy did shelter the six for a few days but it was agreed by everyone that the Canadian embassy would be more secure and suitable, so they moved. A New Zealand official transported them and the British also helped other Americans trapped in the country at the time. The director Ben Affleck acknowledged that he intentionally deviated from the real events in order to quicken the pace and build up the tension. With John Goodman's performance as John Chambers, this is the only time that a real-life Oscar winner is portrayed in a film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ben Affleck was criticized by some viewers for casting himself (a European-American) as Tony Mendez and not a Latino/Hispanic actor. Mendez (who is half-Mexican, half-European) however said he had "no problem" with being portrayed by Affleck, and approved of his performance.
*Emotion- A well acted, produced and good paced suspense film with many twists and turns. Good tension by the viewer. The fact that this plot was loosely a true story only helps it's credibility and enjoyment. The end of the film is somewhat spoiled by the narration of X-president Jimmy Carter trying to positively cash-in on the international incident and the possible deaths of the 6 hostages. That's a shameful action from a America's shameful president of his era.
*Based on- The Iranian American embassy take over and hostage crisis.