If this were not a true story, no one would believe it

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2014)

From the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction file comes "Argo," a movie based on a true-life story so unlikely and improbable that it could never have sprung full-blown from the mind of a screenwriter. And if it did, it would certainly never have been green-lit by any self-respecting studio. That it WAS based on a true story made it possible for director Ben Affleck to bring it to the screen and to win a Best Picture Oscar for his efforts.
The saga of "Argo" begins in the fall of 1979, when, in response to President Carter's providing sanctuary for the deposed Shah, anti-Western demonstrators stormed the American embassy in Tehran, capturing and holding sixty-some-odd foreign service workers there as hostages for 444 days. However, unbeknownst to the Iranians - and virtually everyone else in the world - six of the people working in the compound managed to escape to the Canadian embassy, where they spent the next several months in hiding. When the state department finally learned of their presence there, a plot was hatched to get them out and to safety. And this is where things really got weird. It was CIA operative Tony Mendez (played by Affleck) who came up with the bizarre, longest-of-long-shots plan to pose as a Hollywood filmmaker scouting locations for a sci-fi epic he hoped to shoot in that country, passing off the six embassy staff as his crew. In order to pull off the ruse - one fraught with untold risk and peril for all concerned - Mendez enlisted members of the movie industry as co-conspirators and allies, some cognizant of the truth but most not. "Argo" was the actual script that Mendez found lying in a pile of discards and around which he wove an elaborate hoax, even going so far as to take out ads in the trade papers in case the Iranians needed a little convincing that everything was indeed on the up-and-up. Like a modern-day Henry Higgins with the lives of six innocent people at stake, Mendez had to train these bureaucrats to act, speak and behave like a movie crew or face possible execution if their true identities were discovered. It was truly a special op to end all special ops, though the full truth of it remained hidden until the mission was finally declassified in 1997.
The screenplay by Chris Terrio mines a rich vein of dark humor as it juxtaposes the kitschiness and cheesiness of early '80's movie-making against the backdrop of a life-and-death real-world event. John Goodman plays makeup artist John Chambers and Alan Arkin portrays film producer Lester Siegel, two of the Hollywood bigwigs whose professional expertise was instrumental in securing freedom for the group. Bryan Cranston (with a full head of hair) and the seemingly ubiquitous Kyle Chandler (having also appeared in the similar "Zero Dark Thirty") provide some of the more familiar faces in a large and impressive cast.
There's breath-bating suspense as Mendez shepherds his "crew" past one security checkpoint after another with the Iranian authorities in hot pursuit. Will they make it to the plane on time, and, once aboard, will they be able to reach freedom or will they be somehow thwarted in their effort?
As with most movies based on true events, "Argo" faced its share of criticism from a predictable chorus of nitpicking naysayers for fudging some of the facts and for overdramatizing the beat-the-clock nature of the narrative. Well, get over it, folks; this is a movie, and, as such, a certain amount of dramatic license must be afforded the storytellers in pursuit of their art. And art it turns out to be, a canny combination of social drama and pulse-pounding thriller than never fails to astonish and entertain.