{"id":9249,"date":"2012-11-04T22:58:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T12:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=9249"},"modified":"2015-08-02T23:19:24","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T13:19:24","slug":"argo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=9249","title":{"rendered":"Argo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"argoposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Ben Affleck
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Chris Terrio and Tony Mendez
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman<\/p>\nI<\/span>n 1979, Iranian Revolutionaries raided and kidnapped 52 hostages from the American embassy in Tehran.\u00a0 Unbeknownst to the militia, they did not capture everyone.\u00a0 Six embassy workers managed to escape the building and found refuge in the Canadian embassy.<\/p>\n

The hostage crisis would go on to last for 444 days but for the escapees they faced a shorter race against time.\u00a0 As child labourers painstakingly pieced together shredded security documents to identify every last American in the office, they knew that if they were found in hiding, they would face certain execution.\u00a0 After two months, they attempted their rescue by working with an American CIA operative who disguised them as a Canadian film crew making a sci-fi film inspired by Star Wars<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This incredible true story was first brought to light when President Clinton declassified the mission in the Nineties and now the story is brought to the screen by Ben Affleck.<\/p>\n

The rescue attempt seems convoluted and implausible but when we witness the brainstorming session in the Pentagon, we learn that there are extremely limited options for disguises.\u00a0 With so few Westerners residing in Iran at the time, disguising the embassy staff as teachers or charity workers was impossible.\u00a0 The original plan – “The Bicycle Option” – proposed that they smuggle in bicycles for everyone and escape via a three hundred mile trek through the Iranian winter.\u00a0 In the end, the CIA opted to go for “The Hollywood Option.”<\/p>\n

Enter CIA agent Tony Mendes who not only comes up with the plan, he creates a fake Hollywood film project with the help of his friend John Chambers, a Hollywood make up artist, and then lead the escape mission himself in Tehran.\u00a0 What a guy.<\/p>\n

Argo<\/em> is an exciting and taut thriller that Ben Affleck has skillfully produced with an impeccable sense of pace, tone and economy.\u00a0 There is little wasted motion as the film opens with a stage-setting narration of the Iranian revolution followed by a breath-taking recreation of the embassy raid.\u00a0 From there we understand exactly what the stakes are, that the clock is ticking and that a rickety half-baked plan is all that stands between rescue and public execution.<\/p>\n

Affleck is very matter-of-fact and clinical in his portrayal of the events that unfold.\u00a0 The introductory narration does not shy away from mentioning how the West supported a coup d’etat in Iran which destabilized the region but he also doesn’t downplay the barbarism of the revolutionaries either.<\/p>\n

Argo<\/em> maintains a sharp focus on the plight of the escapees and the CIA officers in America who are working to save them but the few scene-setting cut aways are interesting as they draw on some comparisons and differences between the Iranians and the Americans.\u00a0 There is footage of American protestors reacting to the hostage crisis and as they burn Iranian flags and beat any dark skinned people unfortunate enough to cross their paths, they don’t appear too dissimilar to the Iranians leading the raid.\u00a0 Likewise, for day to day Iranians going about their business, we see a shot of two women eating at their local Tehran KFC.\u00a0 Those are some of the similarities.\u00a0 The cold stark difference is most strikingly represented when Mendes arrives in Tehran and sees a man hung from a construction crane.\u00a0 That’s when we realize the gravity of the situation and how he is truly walking into the lion’s den.<\/p>\n

This is a film with few frills, a low key musical score and no time for superfluous side stories.\u00a0 Affleck understands that the actual event is so incredible it sells itself.\u00a0 I enjoyed the casting of some great Hollywood character actors such as Bryan Cranston, Richard Kind and Phillip Baker Hall to play the suits in the CIA.\u00a0 You might not recognize the names but you’ll know the faces.\u00a0 Otherwise, they’ve wisely opted to cast unknowns for the hostages themselves who, during the closing credits, we find bear an uncanny resemblance to those involved in the real deal.<\/p>\n

Argo<\/em> is a thoroughly enjoyable thriller.\u00a0 It continues Ben Affleck’s amazing creative revival and renaissance in a new line of work.\u00a0 As that one recent episode of South Park<\/em> observed, he is now an award winning writer, actor and<\/em> director.\u00a0 It almost seems unfair.\u00a0 As for the real life Tony Mendes, someone in the film remarks that he will go down as one of the fifty all-time greatest CIA agents.\u00a0 Which begs the question:\u00a0 what incredible stories lie behind the actions of the other 49 agents?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prince of Persia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2264,1429,1430,1540,1963,1573],"class_list":["post-9249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-alan-alda","tag-argo","tag-ben-affleck","tag-best-picture-2013","tag-bryan-cranston","tag-john-goodman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9249"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9255,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9249\/revisions\/9255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}