Game Affleck aims for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN prestige and falters in an otherwise acceptable historical account of Carter era Iranian hostage crises

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2012)

ARGO (2012) *** Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Zeljko Ivanek, Titus Welliver, Keith Szarabajka, Bob Gunton, Richard Kind. Based on true life account of the 1979 Iran hostage crises focusing on six Americans hidden by the Canadian Ambassador while the CIA orders a covert op to rescue them from harm's way with Affleck as liaison Tony Mendez who cooks up a wild scheme involving Hollywood as a plot point (posing as a film crew scouting exotic locales for the fictional titular sci-fi flick). As the clock ticking potboiler attempts for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN prestige it falls short namely for the six characters assumed to be worthy of saving when they are instead depicted as quite frankly obnoxious and irritating. Affleck continues his streak as a filmmaker with a tightly scripted docudrama feel from Chris Terrio's adaptation based on an article by Joshuah Bearman and a solid character actor cast buoys its pretensions with aplomb.