Escaping from a revolution

Rating: 9/10 (18 September 2013)

When the American embassy in Tehran is overrun shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 six US diplomats manage to slip away and take refuge in the Canadian ambassador's house. The Iranians don't initially know that anybody is missing but it is only a matter of time before they can reassemble the shredded documents and learn what has happened and ultimately who is missing. Back at the CIA they are trying to find a way to get them out but all the ideas they come up with are deeply flawed. Then Tony Mendez; a specialist in extracting people comes up with an audacious plan that is so crazy it might just work he will fly in and join up with then then they will all fly out again posing as a Canadian film crew that had been location scouting for the Sci-fi film 'Argo'. The CIA knows that the Iranians aren't idiots; they will have to make it look real and that means getting Hollywood producers on board and getting the sort of publicity that a real film would have. With this in place Tony just has to fly to Iran and hope the six diplomats can bluff their way past the crowds of American-hating Iranians and the Revolutionary Guards.
Stories based on fact have one big advantage over entirely fictional thrillers they can do things that would appear unbelievable in a work of fiction because they actually happened; escaping from revolutionary Iran while pretending to be making a Star Wars rip-off is certainly pretty unbelievable! Director Ben Affleck did a fine job capturing the feel of 1979; the film even looks like films of that era, He also does a great job acting as protagonist Tony Mendez. The rest of the cast, including the likes of Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman also perform well; I especially enjoyed the latter two who provided some nice laughs which lightened the mood nicely at times. Even though most viewers will know the mission was successful there are quite a few surprisingly tense moments; especially towards the end. There are inevitably some factual inaccuracies although I think they can be forgiven as the story works well and trying to make it entirely accurate would have served to lower the tension without necessarily adding to the story.