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| Ben Affleck, head and shoulders above the rest on a Tehran street. |
Last night I convinced my husband to refrain from watching the chorus of bloviating idiots who spew their copycat opinions on TV, passing them off as "news." Instead we settled in to ARGO, a movie we first saw eight years ago and only half-remembered. The second viewing was even better than the first.
Ben Affleck directed this tense, often funny film based on the true story of the hostages taken by Iranian militants who stormed our embassy in Tehran in 1979, seeking revenge for President Jimmy Carter giving asylum to their hated leader, the Shah. While 66 people were taken during the melee, six Americans were able to escape and hide out at the Canadian Embassy. To get them out of Iran before they are discovered, specialist and former CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) was called in to do the job.
Based on a book about the ordeal written by the real-life Tony Mendez, this is movie-making at its best. Authentic footage of the crazed mobs overtaking the streets of Tehran are interwoven with the make-believe mobs of extras created on a Hollywood set. It's almost impossible to tell the difference. Meanwhile, the movie industry as reflected by an ex-CIA officer-turned-makeup artist (John Goodman) and a has-been film producer (Alan Arkin), both hired to make a fake movie supposedly set in Iran in order to rescue the six hostages, stands in sharp comedic contrast to the horror of the Iranian chaos.
It's a scary, edgy thriller with equal amounts of pathos and laugh-out-loud moments. Best of all, there's no Donald Trump, no Joe Biden and no Nancy Pelosi, or any of the other backstabbing, cheating, lying, lowdown politicians currently jockeying for position to rule our world. What a welcome relief from reality.
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