Seems to good to be true, but it is very true indeed

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2012)

All children of the 70s and earlier will recollect, to some degree, the alarming news story of the brutal attack and capture of the Iranian American Embassy towards the end of the decade, by the enraged victims of the despotic Shah whose illegitimate seizure of power the American Government had fully supported. The horrors faced by the American staff who were brutally held as hostages in an attempt to force the government to allow the hated exiled Shah, who America was protecting, to be brought to justice, were the stuff of one's worst nightmares, and almost impossible to fully imagine. It was a truly gripping saga that occupied the news both in and outside of America for months, but an even more twisted turn of events that received deliberately less coverage was that of six diplomats who managed to escape the hostile protesters and mercifully found refuge in the Canadian Embassy. As the Iranian political climate became even more violently anti-American, to the point of extremity, it seemed ever more impossible to extricate these six survivors, until skilled agent Tony Mendez brought an ingeniously unorthodox rescue plan to the table. He planned to have them fly back to America disguised as Canadian filmmakers on a location scout in the Orient for a B-Grade science fiction Hollywood production entitled Argo.
From a simultaneously oddball yet chilling declassified story from the archives of the American Central Intelligence Agency, rookie filmmakers Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio have managed to serve up a perfectly thrilling heist film with the added touch of many clever comedic scenes, and all on the solid foundation of arrestingly real political conflicts.
The opening scene of the terrifying riot outside the embassy is captivatingly intense, yet tragic, as those on and off the screen are both fearfully preparing for an unstoppable invasion by burning and shredding as many confidential documents as they can, but also anticipating it with a melancholic sense of inevitable, impending doom. Despite the drama, this opening retains a sense of documentary-style realism, strengthened by several intercut shots of a room full of world- weary Iranian citizens waiting for their liberating American Visas. The mundane tedium of their long exercise in patience grounds the scene in a historical integrity.
Few of the other major sequences are so committed realistic, but we don't need them to be. We enjoy the observant black comedy of the deliberations between imbecilic government officials who seem less capable of saving the diplomats' lives than their cleaning staff, and even more entertainingly, the astute dissection of the Hollywood sci- fi/fantasy production line. The CIA board's understanding of the country they are attempting to infiltrate is as shamelessly stereotypical as the movies that have been worked on by special effects designer John Chambers (John Goodman) and big-time director Lester Seigel (Alan Arkin), who use their Hollywood know-how to create an authentic fake movie. Watching these two acting veterans making Terrio's dialogue ring with such welcome comic relief is a delicious treat on top of the riveting humanist heist story.
Although the heightened intensity of their depicted ordeal carries some of the sadism of a squirmy thriller, where the character's pain becomes the audience's pleasure, we never forget that these events did actually take place thirty years ago, in more or less the same fashion. The characters that find themselves cornered by the horrific dangers of the streets outside, the Iranian government's rapid progress towards finding their hideout and the unbelievable craziness of Tony's scheme, are very relatable, fleshed-out and very true to life, as is their situation. A comparison against images from the film of these key figures, and the horrors of the environment they were trapped in, reveal just how meticulously they were recreated. As Robert Anders, Mark and Cora Lijek, Lee Schatz and Joseph and Cathleen Stafford, Tate Donovan, Christopher Denham, Clea Duvall, Rory Cochrane, Scoot McNairy and Kathy Stafford are modestly believable, and are even made to look very much like the actual six from the "Canadian Caper." Even Arkin and Goodman, who still wear their grand personalities over their naturalistic characterisations, bear an impressive resemblance to the real movie-making gurus behind the elaborate plan. However, the creative license taken in pursuit of chuckles and chills, most notably with the contrivances of the nail- biting climax, are effective, forgivable, and offset by the stark realism of scenes as such as those showing teams of thousands Iranians hurriedly piecing together the shredded documents and photographs from the embassy for political ammunition.
It isn't hardened psychopathic mercenaries who are racing towards the knowledge of the six escapees with their razor-sharp perception. Instead, it is the jigsaw puzzle skills of innocent children inside whom their parents have started to breed a simplistic hatred of Americans, and the support of a tyrannical movement to kill and oppress them all in the name of justice because they installed a tyrannical leader who killed and oppressed them. Even though the film rarely returns to these political issues after the very helpful prologue, the hypocrisy of both nations is interesting to contemplate.