Argo

Like John Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis or our treatment of the Japanese during the second world war, you could say the Iran hostage crisis is basically forgotten. As a reminder, the Iran hostage crisis took place during the 70's with fifty-two Americans held hostage in the U.S. embassy by Iranian students during the Iranian Revolution. Along with 9/11, this is still one of the biggest acts of terrorism against the United States.

Argo is the fictional story of the real Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), a U.S. CIA agent who must pose as the producer of the fictional movie Argo with the idea that this will hopefully free the hostages and lead them out of Iran.

Years ago, you could put a big disaster mark at the idea of Affleck directing a film on the Iranian hostage crisis. Now though, Affleck is really at the top of his game. Throughout this film, we can tell that he knows this story and did his homework. He really looks at every possible angle and worked well with the budget provided. The bottom line is this is not the same shallow Ben Affleck that we knew back in the early 2000's.

One highlight is how Affleck creates a tense feel in this movie. We watch characters that you feel for so badly because they are innocent and should not be in this predicament.  These are characters that you can root for with acting just where it needs to be. The 70's setting is accurately depicted and this is a film that you can say "I feel like we are in the 70's". Once we reach the final act, you really don't know what the final outcome will be which keeps the viewers interested right until the end.

The most beautiful thing the film does is to depict how a film is made. The movie is not only original but you really learn how to make a film including how to do casting, marketing and set location. Most of it was stuff I knew but it is still some very fun and interesting stuff.

I could never love this film like some others and I don't see this having a big impact on me. It is a little long for my taste but Argo is a movie I recommend because we can learn so much about an important story and also see some outstanding direction by Ben Affleck. This is a film that in the end feels like a big fun history lesson.

4/5