Argo

Argo f&*( yourself! This is a line that is repeated quite a bit in this movie and it really never gets old. Not like the whole Bennifer ordeal did in the early 2000's. Jennifer Lopez is another career killer! Look at what she did to Ben Affleck. One day he's on top of the world by starring in Good Will Hunting, Armageddon, Reindeer Games, Boiler Room , etc and then the next he's making Daredevil, Gigli, and Paycheck. Now granted in hindsight it's hard to tell when his career started to fall off because 90% of what I just named was a shitty movie but at least pre Lopez his movies made money and you weren't openly laughing at him in the theater. Well somewhere along the way he dumped her, decided to get behind the camera, and sold Hollywood execs on the fact that he's a good director. And so far I would have to agree. I have liked every movie he has directed and in making Gone Baby Gone and The Town he has somehow turned himself into a low level A list director. Now these movies definitely have their flaws but they are well made, intriguing at times, and most importantly he adds his own style without distracting you from what's happening on screen. The only thing is his movies could probably use more of a drunken Colin Ferrell saying things like "Let's bring on the pain, let's bring on the noise" while dancing to terrible Nu-Metal or maybe remixes of the Funky Bunch (that's a Daredevil reference for those who couldn't sit through the movie). And yes, I plan to make a drunken Ferrell reference in every movie post moving forward!

This movie goes back to the origin of the bad blood that has formed between the US and Iran. It starts off by describing U.S.'s support of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who rose to power in Iran and was basically a horrible leader. He stayed in lavish castles and hotels, had food shipped in daily from France, and had bathers who said "the royal penis is clean your highness" on a daily basis to him while his citizens were starving and being killed in the streets. "Let them eat cake!" Well eventually the Iranians had enough and decided to start a revolution and your boy Reza got of of Iran with the quickness. He told the U.S. that he was dying of cancer so we granted him a safe place to hide out while in exile. This further angered the Iranians so they decided to take over the U.S. embassy and capture 55 American citizens holding them hostage until we returned Reza to them for judgment of his crimes. Well 6 lucky Americans were able to escape before being captured and found refuge in the Canadian ambassador's home.

This movie is about the creative way our government went about attempting to rescue the 6 that got away before the Iranians realized they had escaped. Ben Affleck is playing a Hispanic man, Tony Mendez, who was responsible for coming up with the details of the rescue mission. Now typically I'd stop typing here, would start laughing, and would immediately call this movie weak but thankfully he gives a low key performance and doesn't do anything silly like attempting a Mexican accent and rolling tortillas in the morning. He comes up with the idea of them posing as a Canadian film crew who happen to be on site researching possible shooting locales. And you are taken through the entire process of them selling this fake movie to make it look real while a the same time seeing the growing intensity of the situation in Iran as it is just a matter of time before these 6 are found and executed.

The real trick is to make something suspenseful out of a story in which you already know the ending and Affleck is successful in that. There were quite a few tense moments and you find yourself openly rooting in the theater. All of the actors look just like the original people who went through this and no one over acts, so there are very few scenes that come off as cheesy or too Americana. This is one of the better movies of the year and I would definitely rate it as FRESH!

Oh and just as a historical side note, this took place in 1979 and Reza didn't actually die until the year 2011. Just some food for thought as they never actually mentioned that in the film.