Argo to Iran and all I got was this awesome movie

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2013)

A CIA operative enters Iran during the 1979-80 hostage crisis with the intention of bringing out six Americans who managed to escape the American embassy and are hiding in the Canadian embassy. He plans to do this by giving each a cover: together, they will represent a Canadian movie crew scouting Iran for filming locations for a Star Wars knockoff movie. The clincher? It all really happened.
At first, the students who took over the American embassy do not know that six of their captives are missing, which buys everyone some time. The CIA brainiacs try to figure out a way to extradite them to the US. Have them pose as teachers? There are no American teachers left in Iran - they'd be spotted. Have them escape via bicycle? It's winter, no one's riding a bike. How about as farmers? See above. There's snow in Iran. And then Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directed) gets the idea of getting the Americans out by way of Hollywood.
Tensions are extremely high. There is anti-American hatred in the streets of Tehran, and there's plenty of anti-Iranian sentiment in the U.S. as well. The students want to show the world that they mean business, but the U.S. doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Things don't look good, especially with the knowledge that inevitably someone will notice that six Americans are missing among the captured. Time is not on our side.
Since the premise of the six Americans' cover is that of a Canadian film crew, there needs to be a script. And a producer, and a director. Mendez contacts John Chambers (John Goodman), a veteran makeup/costume artist, who brings in at-the-end-of-his-career Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). They find a script, called Argo, that involves an alien invasion. They option the rights and set up an office. It all must look legit; no chances can be taken.
Getting Mendez into Iran is not too difficult; it's getting his "crew" out that's the fly in the ointment. Meanwhile, the houseguests at the Canadian embassy are getting restless and paranoid. They can't go outside. The only other residents at the embassy are the ambassador and the housekeeper, who is Iranian. Something's gotta give, as they say.
This true story was declassified only in 1997 by President Clinton, and from what I have read, the story was left basically intact. Amazing. A single American enters a place in which Americans are essentially hated and departs with six more. That's some serious moxie. Them's some serious cojones for sure.
Affleck's quick-paced film is stunning and evocative; a compelling, artful piece of work. He's well cast as Mendez, an operative who generally looks like he's lost, utterly alone, in the world, hoping that this mission will save him from himself. We get just enough of Mendez's backstory to see him as a sympathetic man with a lot on the line.
It could be that 2012 winds up being one of the best years for movies in quite a long time, and as such it might be hard for Argo to dominate as it might in other years. But it should do very well come awards time. It's already been nominated for five Golden Globes, and I can believe Oscar nods for Arkin, Affleck (thrice), Terrio, and co-producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov.
Watching the movie can be a traumatic experience. History isn't always the best subject of Americans, so let me clue you in on this much: If Mendez had been unsuccessful, we wouldn't be watching a movie about the experience. Even those who were not alive in 1980 will be riveted, rooting for the Americans, cringing when obstacles arise, weeping when those obstacles are overcome. Chris Terrio's screenplay is powerful, but it's the interpretations given by Affleck, Goodman, Arkin, and Bryan Cranston (as Affleck's boss, and looking a LOT like George H. W. Bush) that really generate this film's strength. It's a genuinely astonishing movie, tightly edited, crisply written, and acted with true grit. Affleck himself turns in a particularly gutsy performance.