Thrilling, at times in spite of itself.

Rating: 8/10 (18 June 2013)

Embassy staff at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 are minding their own business when a student march arrives at their door. Things get more and more difficult as it turns into a protest with protesters climbing the walls, eventually they make it inside while the staff frenetically tries to destroy documents. Some who are at the public's entrance decide to escape the embassy while the rest are held hostage. These six make it to the residence of the Canadian ambassador and stay there.
This of course becomes the Iran hostage crisis. But the focus of Argo isn't on that, but on the 6 held up at the Canadian residence. It gets to the point where they are putting at risk the Canadians who themselves have asked the US to do something.
Back in the US, CIA and State mull over scenarios to get them out. One idea is to have them ride a bike during the winter to Turkey disguised as agricultural experts. But eventually the CIA's exfiltration expert, Tony, comes up with the idea to pretend to film a movie in Iran and the 6 are part of the crew. He has to make it look real so he travels to Hollywood, finds a sci-fi script, gets in touch with a friendly make-up artists who connects him with a producer who will produce the fake movie. Argo is the title of the script they settle on. They do casting calls and script reading and get stories published in industry magazines.
With that Tony travels to Iran, gets in touch with an agent and deals with the culture ministry and so on. The 6 of course don't like the idea of having to risk their lives for freedom. Eventually of course they agree. Things get risky when they do location scouting pretending to be a film crew in a busy bazaar.
Meanwhile in the US, State decides to shut the operation down, but Tony doesn't see any other way out than continuing the operation just as the Iranians are about to storm the Canadian residence.
Argo does work surprisingly. Surprisingly because it doesn't have much of a lead or main characters. Tony is silent and laid back. We know almost nothing about the 6 and only see them when they start complaining about Tony's plan. Of course when the movie focuses on Hollywood it becomes enthusiastic and our producer who's been around the block a couple of times knows how rotten the business is. Those scenes provide some comic relief.
It's the story here the carries the movie. It slowly creates suspense despite some obvious exaggerations and unrealistic scenes designed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Will Tony and the 6 make it to the plane? Will the Iranians, who are already on the alert, discover the ruse? Argo does an excellent job with the setting of the 70s with its documentary tone. That makes it all fairly realistic since much is based on actual footage of the time. Argo is an exciting and entertaining movie if you set aside some of the minor flaws. It's not quite a best movie of the year, but Hollywood loves nothing more than to glorify itself and make its absurd line of work appear heroic.