Fridae

Arriving just in time for the American elections and Obama's second term triumph, Argo is an intense political thriller, a brilliant send up of Hollywood, and a detailed recreation of one of the darkest hours in recent American and world political history.

Probably no single world event reshaped the directions of American foreign policy as much as the Iranian Revolution. As the Shah's proud, fragile Empire funded with American money revealed its hollow shell and tumbled into the dust like Ozymandias' statue, it also signaled a sharp break with the realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, whose strategy was basically to beat back Communism with a bunch of nonideological authoritarian goons, it birthed neoconservatism as an ideology today, the idea that America's engagement with regimes it disagrees with would be to engage in continual Democratic Revolution, finding its most recent manifestation in the form of the War on Terror.

History has put Carter into its dustbin for the failure of the Delta Force Rescue Mission and its direct link to the triumph of Reagan that brought in the era of Neoconservatism, but based on recently declassified CIA documents, this movie attempts to throw some light on a small but little known success to come out of that Revolution: one borne from the adept use of soft power rather than hard.  The creation of a fake sci-fi epic to be called Argo, an apparent Star Wars ripoff made in Canada, will be the front for a rescue operation involving Americans hidden in the Canadian embassy. The production would involve veteran Hollywood makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman), and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), and led by CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs.)

Certainly, after becoming a laughingstock for putting animal crackers in Liv Tyler's bellybutton in Armageddon, dressing up in a red spandex suit wooing now-wife Jennifer Garner in Daredevil, and starring alongside Jennifer Lopez in the flop Gigli, Ben Affleck has returned in recent years as one of Hollywood's sharpest young directors with the thrillers Gone Baby Gone and The Town, and he continues his winning streak here.

As a former actor himself, Affleck's experience translates into a gift for suspense by getting you involved with his characters. He has you shouting instructions to them in your mind as you are aware of things that the characters are not. I once applauded a scene in The Town involving a hidden tattoo as a scene of such mastery, and here we get many more that abound as the hostages attempt to escape their pursuers.

Affleck's command of character and nuance is remarkable, other than his detailed recreations of the era based on actual press photos, he gets such great performances out of his actors; from the Hollywood antics of Goodman and Arkin to the various hostages to even the Iranian censors and intelligence agents, that even the most minor feel like real people. Especially in a genre where it is too common to vilify the enemy, Affleck never forgets to depict them as intelligent, resourceful and even civilized men rather than paint with a broad brush as nasty fanatics even as he never forgets to highlight as well the fallout of the Shah's American-supported rule, as shown in a particularly harrowing scene where a shopkeeper is the one who comes out later to target the crew as Americans (even if they carry fake Canadian passports) because his son was killed with 'American rifles' by the Shah's Army.

Where Affleck's movie shines is almost a response or a placebo to such fallouts from American foreign policy: transcending its roots as a political thriller and a Hollywood satire into becoming a poignant statement about the power of film, in a very late scene, Scoot McNairy delivers an awesome performance as he mimes and regurgitates the plot of Argo with its triumph of good over evil to an Iranian guard at the airport, complete with various hand gestures. and they watch on, entranced and impressed by the storyboards he presents. In a world filled with intractable geopolitical and religious hatreds, small comfort can be found in how movies can even bring the most bitter of enemies to a temporary truce.

P.S. Arriving here almost in time for Obama's win, the film's end credits narration by none other than Carter himself is icing on the cake, feeling almost like a long overdue finger to the Republican party.