Making It Up As He Goes Along

Rating: 5/10 (24 May 2017)

Hollywood movies get a lot of flak for messing with the truth. Sometimes it's because people don't appreciate that compromises have to be made to fit in a two-hour window. Other times, like "Argo," the compromises wind up compromising what's on screen.
November, 1979. In Tehran, Iran, the Islamic Revolution is flexing its muscles. After the deposed Shah goes to the U. S. for cancer treatments, the U. S. Embassy is seized in retaliation, its personnel now hostages to pressure the Shah's forced return. Six Americans who escaped the embassy now hide, their days of relative freedom numbered.
It's a tense-enough situation, but director Ben Affleck and the creative team behind his star vehicle "Argo" can't resist giving audiences extra tension. His superior (Bryan Cranston) warns him of the high stakes if the refugees are discovered by the Iranian revolutionaries:
"Standing room only for beheadings in the square...These people die, they die badly."
Did anyone think that was really going to happen? Iran had gone insane, yes, but the hostages at the embassy were still alive. The psychological tortures they endured, outside of being paraded blindfolded for the cameras, wouldn't become public knowledge until much later.
It's hard to imagine the Iranian revolutionaries so put out not having six more hostages. For all the introductory talk about the CIA propping up the evil Shah, the real reason for taking hostages isn't addressed in the film; Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, whose embassy sheltered the refugees (who would become known as the "guests") points out in a DVD extra that there were four major factions in Iran fighting for supremacy. The hostages became a trump card for the radical Shiite faction. They didn't care about having all the embassy personnel, or they wouldn't have let some go in the days immediately after the takeover. What they wanted, and got, was the attention of the international media.
This would still make for an interesting film, if not one with totally fictional devices like car chases and an angry confrontation at a Tehran bazaar. You would need a director and screenwriter with more of an interest in the six refugees and their search for help in the days before reaching the Canadians than as simple MacGuffins for the main character, Affleck's exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez, who gets all the big close-ups.
The most egregious departure from the truth also makes the least sense within the confines of what's on screen: That Mendez opts to make his play to evacuate the six after being told the operation is a no-go by higher-ups in Washington. There was no such decision made at this late stage of the operation, but I guess Affleck felt he needed it to juice up the plot. Time and again, you sense Affleck just played with the real story like this, to give him an excuse for the heavy music and dramatic close-ups. Here, what you get, in the context of this already compromised story, is a guy who risks the six people on an operation that may never get off the ground.
I wish I minded all this messing around less, because I really do enjoy watching the movie. The editing is tight, the comic relief is funny, Affleck plays a cool hero with engaging poise, and the period costumes and set design are first-rate. I finally found out where my childhood collection of Hardy Boys books went.
Alan Arkin has a part as an irascible Hollywood producer which is a lot of fun. Many of the film's great lines are his: "John Wayne is in the ground six months, and this is what's left of America."
The Canadian Caper, as it is rightly known, is a good story. Too bad "Argo" does such a poor job of telling it. I know movies are like history's second draft, meant to be reviewed and put in the right context, but "Argo" pushes the entertainment button too often and winds up missing the mark.