Proof you don't need explosions and gunfights to make an edge of your seat thriller!

Rating: 9/10 (18 November 2012)

Gotta say, loved it, loved it, loved it! Brilliantly done, very unusual that the extremely liberal Hollywood (and famous leftie Ben Affleck) makes a movie with the CIA as the good guys. Some have said that it unfairly depicts the Iranian revolution but frankly when you watch the end credits you see how exactly true to life the films depiction of events is (the man being hanged from a crane in the Tehran street is especially disconcerting). If anything the film tones things down a bit to be painstakingly even handed, the scene where Iranians in the US are attacked by angry crowds as a mirror image of what is going on to the diplomats in Iran. The storming of the embassy scene and the part where their van drives through the crowd is probably the closest thing you'll ever get to a real life zombie movie. The panic and yet practicality of the diplomats is great, destroying all the sensitive materials before they end up in Moscow by the end of the week, knowing that they're helpless and can only delay the inevitable. The scenes where the kids reassemble the shredded material is very creepy and some great acting by the Iranian actors in the bazaar scene, just exploding into frenzied rage over nothing. In real life the British Embassy does take the Americans in before passing them to the Canucks and the Kiwis also help with the escape. Love all the Hollywood stuff, terrific performances all round, especially the scene where they buy the script. I think the 'Argo F*&k yourself!' line may be one of my favourite ever. The Iranian guide in the bazaar scene is also great, his idea for a movie very believable, you'd almost want to see it. It is amazingly good, the details they took to recreate the late 70s are fantastic, the 70s government offices are so realistic I keep expecting to see Diana Prince walk across the background. Especially loved all the science fiction refs, most of all the extras hanging around the studio lot in their Cylon outfits from Battlestar Galactica. The bureaucratic wrangling and inter-department infighting back in Washington are exactly what you'd expect in real life. And what a coup to get Jimmy Carter to do his voice-over at the end! One problem, why don't the Iranians just call their air force to intercept the Swissair flight? But maybe they didn't want to annoy the Swiss as they were going after the Shah's money. The sequence where they celebrate on the plane is brilliant, you share their overwhelming sense of relief. A little unfair on the Shah and the Western intelligence agencies, they installed the Shah to prevent Iran falling under the Soviets and he did a great deal to advance his people, saying he tried to 'Westernise' his country is too simplistic a way to put it. Still, small points, it's an amazing film and deserves multiple Oscars.