The Hollywood Option

Argo

***  out of ****

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Victor Garber

Running time: 120 minutes

A stampeding mob of demonstrators besiege an embassy. American flags wave about the street, awash in flames. An inauthentic movie set in a foreign land.

Considering how these elements mirror the events surrounding the anti-Western furor recently ignited in the Middle East and Africa, it is a small miracle that Ben Affleck’s latest film is selling tickets. Based on a declassified CIA mission, Argo is an undeniably exciting, if simplistic, thriller – a film marred by a less than nuanced screenplay despite some riveting action sequences.

Keep in mind that the film is a dramatization of undercover events from the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and just go along for the ride.

When Iranian revolutionaries take over the U.S. embassy, six American hostages escape the turmoil and take up residence in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber). The Iranians are unaware of their escape.

Enter CIA covert affairs specialist Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), who comes up with a bizarre and unlikely escape protocol – what his supervisor (Bryan Cranston) later refers to as the “best bad idea we have.” The plan is to have the six hostages pose as members of a Canadian film crew that is location scouting for an Arabian Nights-like sci-fi adventure called Argo. With these identities in place, the hostages can get out of the country without drawing suspicion.

Mendez meets with two self-deprecating Hollywood personalities, make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and sardonic, washed up film producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin, often hilarious). Chambers and Siegel back Argo financially and set up fake publicity to authenticate the product.

Moving between Tehran and Tinseltown, Argo is more notable for its entertainment value than its nuanced depiction of political events. The fervor ignited between Americans and Muslims is signaled in an early scene, when an American character pulls on a poster of New York City, the World Trade Center towers prominently positioned as the camera pans by.

Screenwriter Chris Terrio does a notable job of framing the dense, historical background leading up the crisis in a small pre-credits package (featuring storyboards and other movie-related materials). While context reigns, the subtext is somewhat grey.

A few scenes adopt an us-versus-them paradigm of courageous Americans and sinister Muslims that is troubling. One scene cuts between clips of Iranian figureheads threatening the livelihood of Americans as an elaborately costumed cast reads from the Argo screenplay at the Beverly Hilton; intertwined, the two parts feel equally outlandish.

To keep with reality, it is hard to tell how often Affleck maneuvers between archival news broadcasts and images, which adds credibility to the onscreen action. Like the tense, thrilling heist sequences from The Town, his previous film, Affleck keeps the action set-pieces grounded by framing closely on the humans in the midst of the violence.

When not focusing on Mendez, Argo moves between the Hollywood heralds played by Arkin and Goodman and the anxious hostages (played by a variety of excellent character actors). The honchos get more screen time than the hostages, even though it should be the other way around.

The performances, from an ensemble of fine television actors like Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina and Bryan Cranston as mostly administrative types, are uniformly good, although there are no stand-outs worthy of intense awards consideration. Unfortunately, Victor Garber is mostly absent as Ken Taylor, whose role in the actual crisis was far more momentous than how the film depicts it.

Although Affleck carries the film in an ennobling part, his character receives a small arc. The most we know about Mendez is that he is a dedicated man trying to reconcile with his son and wife that has separated from him. Argo does not glorify him, an approach that dulls a middle section as Mendez mulls around Turkey looking for film permits.

While the hero is hard to decipher, the Americans as a whole are characterized too heroically - especially when swells of uplifting music playing near the end correspond to the onscreen heralding of Western diplomatic actions, a phony touch that doesn't effectively comment on the history.

A film whose past seems present, Argo is a gripping and supremely entertaining thriller that goes down a bit too easy as it essentializes a complex political crisis.