Argo (2012) Movie Review

ARGO (2012) MOVIE REVIEW

The movie was fake. The Oscar was real. 

Based on a terrifying true story, the American embassy in Iran begins to be invaded by Iran revolutionaries and several civilians inside were taken hostage. With six of them escaping and reaching sanctuary in the Canadian Ambassador's home. Back in the USA, the government attempts to devise a plan to bring these six home. With little time left, exfiltration officer/expert Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) recommends he be taken to Iran and pose himself and the six others as a Canadian film crew searching for locations to film. Naming the film Argo, Tony with help from Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and John Chambers (John Goodman), begin production on what they call the "greatest fake film". Considering the fact that this is based on true events, it can be noted that this film did the real life event justice.

One of the greatest things about this film is that for a movie that does not directly show people being shot or killed, it does manage to keep the audience excited as well as stressed out. At some moments, it can actually make a person's palms sweaty just from what they envision the result is going to turn out like. With the screenplay being done by a relatively unknown face in film, Chris Terrio managed to hit the ball out of the park as he managed to nail everything that this movie needed to have. If people think he doesn't deserve any credit for this, that Oscar he attained says otherwise.

Although I do not believe this movie had as strong a cast as Silver Linings Playbook for example, it did have some fairly big names in Hollywood. Without question however was Ben Affleck's role as both Tony Mendez and director of the film itself. Acting wise, he did a fantastic job making the viewer care about whether he made it out of Iran, dead or alive. Special mentions should be made towards the two men behind the fake film, Alan Arkin and John Goodman who both did a great job as two old, serious but at time, hilarious men. 

With a best picture win under it's belt, it is hard to deny that this film did not deserve the win, because it did. With Ben Affleck tremendously pulling off this "hard-to-portray" true story, the Oscar was basically Argos for the taking. While it would have been nice to see a movie like Django: Unchained winning, don't let that fool you into thinking it is not worthy of the win. Because it more than is.

RATING: 8.5/10