Shallow, dubious and gung ho but sublimely thrilling

Rating: 7/10 (15 March 2013)

Are you watching, prospective next-Bond-film directors? This is how to do suspense in a movie, and keep piling it on right to the end. The supposedly true story of how 6 American embassy staff were rescued from the Canadian embassy in revolutionary Iran in 1980 by the trick of creating a fake sci-fi film production. Historically accurate? It's a 100% safe assumption that Hollywood will have taken gross liberties with the facts as it always will. That's how it's done, because real history doesn't do suspense like this.
But (I hope) you don't watch Hollywood for history lessons, you watch to be taken out of yourself, and Argo does a great job of that. You may consider that everyone but the Americans gets short-changed in terms of cultural stereotyping, and in that sense Argo is no more than an up-to-date Western, with more accurate period detail to cover its lack of genuine depth. If you like Ron Howard movies, Argo is of that genre, with more edge and sharper humour - a lot of metaphorical waving of the Stars and Stripes and obligatory Arab-bashing, but in the end it's a very exciting movie that pays off like few contemporary thrillers do.