Captive audience

Rating: 7/10 (28 February 2016)

Truth really is stranger than fiction. Really, if the remarkable events depicted in this film hadn't been declassified by President Bill Clinton and instead pitched as a movie itself, it would surely never have gotten off the ground. Sometimes though, a story is so good that it doesn't need the Hollywood treatment and while I admit I was completely caught up in the drama of the six Iranian hostages that got away (in more senses than one), I felt at times manipulated by the what seemed at times artificial ratcheting up of the pressure as the group, led by sole CIA man played by director Ben Affleck edged ever closer to freedom. For a film that tries so hard for the authentic documentary feel, I just doubted if their escape was just so last-minute with their would-be fundamentalist captors learning if their true identities just as they were actually boarding the plane and then were chased down the runway by pursuing police cars and trucks.
This grandstanding detracted from my enjoyment as for me there was more tension in the scenes where up-till-then reluctant unbeliever in Affleck's plan, Bryan Cranston has to improvise storyboardjng the imaginary movie under the scrutiny of gun-toting revolutionary soldiers smelling a rat, or the interminable wait before John Goodman's back-home movie producer picks up a call which again is make or break for the would-be escapees.
With its mix of original news-clips of the day and edgy hand-held shots staged today, I was certainly taken back to the dark days of the long-lasting original crisis. Affleck, behind a nostalgically thick beard last seen on Al Pacino in "Serpico", also didn't quite convince me as the cool pragmatic agent who imperils his own life to attempt to get the six out. On the plus side though Alan Arkin and John Goodman are both fine as the behind-the-scenes Hollywood schemers trying to make the back story look real.
Although I found the direction a little too busy at times, I fully understand the likely attempt to recreate the chaos in Tehran and the desperation in Washington to provide a solution, any solution to the situation. I was amazed at the way the Iranian revolutionaries put young children to work to establish the existence of the six refugees (the moral of the story, always use a criss-cross shredder) and likewise shocked at the sight of a suited businessman hanging by a noose from a construction crane in the middle of what otherwise looks like any other city centre in the world.
Images like those stay long in the memory as does much of this revelatory film which in my opinion just overdid the climax to what is a compelling and blood-thumping story.