Argo (2012) - Ben Affleck

So I’ve seen Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Les Miz. I’ve decided that none of them are in the running to win Best Picture tomorrow night, so I decided to finally sit myself down and watch the real frontrunner, Argo.

I don’t know what it is about this movie. It won Best Drama at the Golden Globes, Best Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, it won the Director’s Guild Award, the Producer’s Guild Award, Best Picture at the BAFTAs, and the Critics Choice Awards Best Picture. This film is DOMINATING Awards Season. It’s a clear favorite for the Academy Awards, and I don’t think anything can stop its momentum. I feel bad for the other movies, but who knows, anything can happen at the Oscars. But if any of the other films win, Ben Affleck will run on stage and say this line:

I thought Argo was going to be specifically about the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis. I thought, why on earth would I want to watch a historical movie about political turmoil in the middle east? (I didn’t want to watch Lincoln either, and I still haven’t seen Zero Dark Thirty). But the film actually specifically follows the “Canadian Caper,” a popularized name for the CIA operation in which six U.S. diplomats who had escaped the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran on the day the Iranian Hostage Crisis began were saved by CIA agent Tony Mendez because of a fake movie he used to get them out, entitled “Argo.” Now that my run-on sentences are over, I can talk about my opinion of the movie.

The story is compelling, intense, and entertaining, which didn’t surprise me at all considering how many awards it has already won. Ben Affleck manages to make an event that is probably still sensitive to some Americans (not Zero Dark Thirty sensitive, but still, controversial) and turn it into a fictionalized drama that has you on the edge of your seat. For the first half of the movie, the film stresses “this mission is extremely dangerous.” The CIA considers a plethora of ideas on how to get the diplomats out of Iran. Weirdly enough, the film hardly cares to follow the 52 Americans that were held captive in the American Embassy in Tehran for a STAGGERING 444 days by Iranian students and militants (yeah I do my research). But I think this specific mission gave the film a lighter, more goal-oriented tone. And I liked that.

Another thing I loved is that the film had John Goodman. You probably recognize him as this.

Another awesome thing about John Goodman is that if Argo wins, he’ll have been in two Best Picture winners in a row (he played Al Zimmer in The Artist). Good for him!

Anyway, the film was much more entertaining than I expected, and it also goes into the crazy stuff involved in making a film! Affleck’s character uses Goodman’s character as well as another character played by Alan Arkin to be the Hollywood producers to help him plan the film out. They have a real script, a real producer, and use real marketing to make the film as legitimate as possible for the Iranian government to believe them. Affleck goes in with stories and identities for each of the six diplomats, and the seven of them leave together as a film crew that is scouting a science fiction film in Iran. The whole process is nail-biting, jaw-dropping, and even funny at times. But I am not kidding when I say you will look like this the entire movie.

And when they finally get on the plane to go home, but even more intense drama is thrown into the scene:

I had a great time watching it, and I’m glad I finally got around to it. Do I think it deserves Best Picture? Meh… I’ll accept it if it does, but I wouldn’t have voted for it myself.