The Great Caper

Rating: 6/10 (14 October 2012)

Ben Affleck's latest movie has been getting a lot of buzz. And while it is not nearly as triumphant as his previous directing jobs (Gone Baby Gone, The Town), The finished product is both fun and smart entertainment that makes for an intense experience.
The story of Argo is based on the rescue of 6 hostages from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Affleck's character works for the CIA, and comes up with the idea to pretend to be a Canadian film crew going to Iran to scout out locations. Since the other ideas are absolutely awful, this is the one they go with. Affleck flies out to Hollywood to meet with people that are on board to make a fake movie. John Chambers, a makeup artist, and Lester Siegal, a producer, decide to try and make it work. Affleck then flies over to Iran to try and get the 6 escapees out of the Canadian ambassador's house and on an airplane.
Since the story is historical, it takes away from the movie at times. The scene where Affleck finally finds the right script is tedious, and the suspense of them trying to sneak around and eventually trying to escape also at times is a bit annoying. However, as Affleck has proved in his previous films, he is a genius at creating suspense. The scene in the airport is entertaining and impressively original in its execution. Affleck also gets the feel of the late 70's down exquisitely well, and the Hollywood aspect allows for a multitude of self referential humor that is very well done.
The acting is all great, especially by Affleck, and John Goodman as the makeup artist. The six hostages are all interesting characters and finely portrayed. The real problem with the movie comes from the script, written by Chris Terrio. His depiction of historical events is almost absurdly derivative and predictable, which limits the movie quite a lot. The characters, too, seem to be a little too basic, but perhaps that is the fact that this is a Hollywood movie about a high concept Hollywood movie that actually happened in real life.
For all of its shortcomings, Argo is a thrilling suspense movie. Affleck is certainly no Hitchcock, but he gets the job done nicely. The movie is American all around, and that gives it both its greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses.
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