Good And Very Suspenseful, But A Bit Lacking In Accuracy

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2012)

I appreciated that I did learn from this movie a lot of background to what is probably better known - here in Canada - as the Canadian Caper. "Argo" is a depiction of the escape from Iran of 6 Americans who managed to avoid the hostage taking at the US Embassy in 1979 and made their way to shelter in the Canadian Embassy, later to be spirited out of the country posing as Canadians. Although I knew this event had happened, and I knew that there was substantial involvement by the CIA which went largely unacknowledged at the time, thus somewhat boosting Canada's role, I wasn't aware of the rather amusing backstory that was used by the CIA to pull off the operation - sending in an operative (Ben Affleck) posing as a Canadian movie maker looking for a shooting location, and setting up an entire movie production company to give credence to the story. I appreciated that background. And I give credit to the movie for being extremely suspenseful - especially in the last scenes at the Tehran Airport, as the Americans try to leave the country on a commercial flight while not blowing their cover as Canadians when being questioned by Iranian authorities. That was truly heart-pounding stuff. Unfortunately, it's also where the movie loses points with me: that was totally made up for dramatic purposes. The group actually sailed easily through the Tehran Airport without raising any suspicions, the plane was not chased down the airport runway by police. That was all made up. To me, that was an unfortunate way to end what had been a pretty good and accurate movie.
It's true that while the Canadian involvement in the plot was deliberately overplayed at the time, the movie underplays the Canadian involvement. Basically, "Argo" portrays the Canadian Embassy as little more than a motel for the 6 Americans, with Ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber) being a friendly innkeeper. There was more to Canada's involvement than that - the curious decision to have the US Government debating right up to the end whether to pay for the group's plane tickets being rather silly, for example, given that the tickets had already been purchased - by the Canadian government. (And, by the way, since the events happen in early 1980, the correct answer to the question "who are the last three prime ministers of Canada?" isn't "Trudeau, Pearson and Diefenbaker," it's "Clark, Trudeau and Pearson" - Joe Clark was Prime Minister when this happened.)
So, for heart-pounding drama, this is a very fine movie and it's worth watching for the look at the details involved in setting up the movie cover story. It just loses a little bit for some of the dramatic licence taken. (7/10)