Hollywood has made many movies about the CIA. This time it is the CIA making the movie...

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2012)

I expected Argo to be a good movie, but I did not expect it to be an enjoyable one. I was pleasantly surprised.
I am old enough to remember the Iranian Hostages being taken and the countdown that appeared every night on the evening news for over a year. I am not old enough to remember the details. The only rescue mission I remembered was the spectacular failure of Operation Eagle Claw and that is what I had thought this movie was going to be about.
Instead the movie was about a crazy plan to to rescue the six Americans that had escaped from the Embassy and had hidden themselves at the home of the Canadian Ambassador. I didn't remember anything about anyone having escaped the U.S. Embassy as it was taken over and for that I am thankful. It allowed me to fully appreciate the suspense as the rescue was attempted.
This plan didn't involve special forces and/or helicopters., but it was pure Hollywood. They CIA set up a movie company, backed a B-movie Science Fiction film and created positions for each of the six trapped Americans as part of the crew sent to scout locations. The plan was to simply fly them out of the country as part of the crew. Of course nothing is every quite that simple Argo was the name of the movie they were theoretically there to scout for. I did a quick search, but it does not seem that the script was ever made into an actually movie (Although there are three other films with that title.). Sad, I would have found in amusing to watch after having heard bits and pieces about it throughout this film. Perhaps the CIA still holds the option on it, or it really was bad enough that no one was willing to produce it.
While the never made Argo may have been a "B" movie at best, Chris Terro's script was anything but bad. He masterfully mixed humor and tension to keep everyone in suspense throughout the movie. Will they or won't they make it. You can probably find the answer on the Internet, but if you don't already know how it ends, I recommend waiting and seeing the movie first.