With the Golden Globe and Oscar season come and gone, I have watched a couple of the nominated movies. First one on the list was Django Unchained. Next came Argo and Les Misérables.
ARGO
As we know it won Best Picture at the Oscars. And for very good reasons. It is an extremely well directed film (well done to Ben Affleck for showing the world what he’s seriously capable of, and thank you to Clooney for producing and having the faith that Affleck could rock the world’s socks).
Spoiler alert: In 1979 the Shah of Iran fled into exile to the USA as the religious fanatic Ayatollah instigated a coup. During this time, protests happened all over Teheran and the American Embassy got besieged. The rioters broke into the embassy and took the embassy staff hostage. During the break-in, 6 staff members escaped and took refuge at the Canadian Ambassador’s house. Argo tells the story about how a CIA agent (played by Ben Affleck) concocted a completely hare-brained idea to get those 6 people out of Iran. The idea was to pretend that a movie director was location scouting for a sci-fi movie and had decided that Iran would be an ideal location. The embassy staff would be members of the directing team. The name of the movie: Argo. The Iranian government bought the story hook, line and sinker and the people were rescued. The embassy staff taken hostage were eventually all released after 444 days.
The movie is well paced, full of suspense that will have you on the edge of the seat. If you don’t find yourself egging on the plane to take off and get into international air space then there is something very wrong with you. The acting is excellent and what I appreciated is how closely the actors resembled the real people, without a mountain of make-up.
Beside the good acting and well directed film I enjoyed the fact that they recreated historical events with great accuracy. Also, the synergy between Alan Arkin and John Goodman is wonderful.
I wholeheartedly recommend Argo.
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