Argo is a movie about how the CIA took out a group of Americans who hid in a Canadian diplomats house after the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis in Tehran. Que up angry bearded men, yelling- no chanting- “death to America” and “America is Great Satan”, militants brandishing AK-47’s and all the other crazy that goes with that Hollywood stereotype. Throw in Ben Affleck, the Oscars, oh and lets not forget the Iranian Nuclear bomb crisis where Israel, our bestest of best friends, wants to single handily drag us into another war in the Middle East. That my readers is the making a GREAT MOVIE! (sarcasm) and also a war propaganda piece.
Or so I thought. I went to see an early preview of “Argo” being wary, skeptical, the only happy thought being that I wasn’t wasting my money on a ticket. It turns out that the movie is a bit of a political thriller that makes you slide into your seat and tense up as the climax builds. Affleck tells the story intelligently yet there is a whole lot of humor in a piece works at looking seriously at the hostage crisis of 1979-81, again this lead to the downfall of President Carter in the US and our steady confrontation with the theocratic Iranian regime.
Argo has a crap load of actors in it, besides Affleck, there is Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Chris Messina, Scoot McNairy, Kyle Chandler, Rory Cochrane, Tate Donovan and Richard Kind. All these actors might create an unpractical mix of styles and people to follow, but to the contrary its serves to make the story complex and the narrative that more entertaining. This in particular makes the movie absorbing.
Not so much a propaganda film as I had imagined, it is however, a film that presents what many Americans have grown accustomed to- angry Muslims. There is no way around this, that is what the whole episode in history was about. Iran had had a revolution and the people that were the forefront of that revolution wanted vengeance but were denied even the ability to gain justice because the Shah of Iran had just been given sanctuary in the United States for cancer treatment. The U.S. had enabled the despotic Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, because of our oil interests (any of this sounding familiar?). To say that the Iranians who stormed the US embassy were anything but angry is an understatement, but to neglect the consequences of American foreign policy would be a huge mistake.
Whether Argo gets that point across to movie goers is unclear, for most people the thrill of the movie would be enough to satiate a strained wallet. Argo hits the theaters October 12, tomorrow, and I would say that its worth watching given that its a story told without resorting to cheap tricks like one line zingers or relying heavily on computer graphics, but rather centered around great actors with an amazing chemistry between them and a script to go along with it.
I was given a free Red Carpet Pass courtesy of the Cadillac ATS because I’m a Klout influencer. I am under no obligation to receive the tickets or talk about this movie. I get no additional benefits for talking about the movie or those behind.
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