Argo fuck yourself.
In 1979, the Iranian populace deposed their monarch of 30some years. Iran had been ruled by Shah’s of the House of Qajar since 1785 and had been a monarchy since antiquity. In 1925 the House of Qajar was overthrown by Reza Khan who was ‘elected’ to the office of Shah and established the House of Pahlavi. Khan was by most accounts, an unusually forward thinking middle eastern monarch and instituted a number of political and economic reforms. Khan would rule until 1941 when he attempted to nationalize British and American oil operations. While this act was done to benefit his people and nation, Kahn was woefully unprepared for for such a world altering political action. British, American, and Soviet forces sponsored an uprising that forced the Shah to abdicate in favor of his son who, to say the least, was not as responsible an administrator as his father.
American and British oil interests continued to operate and the new Shah played every bit the horrific middle eastern potentate for the next several decades. His gestapo like police force and ridiculously over the top lifestyle didn’t endear him to his people. His campaign to ‘westernize’ Iran also won him no friends as this enraged the mostly conservative Shia population. Eventually radical clerics were able to secure Soviet funding (alliances had shifted) and they orchestrated the Shah’s downfall. Once his government fell, the Shah (now elderly and suffering from cancer) fled the country and eventually sought asylum in America.
Then returned the most radical of radical Shia clerics to Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini (despite looking like a kung fu movie evil wizard) was a charismatic and influential leader (Time Man of the Year 1979, not kidding) who was given the position of Supreme Leader (Hitler’s job) in the new Iranian Republic. I’m not going to say he was off his rocker butt nuts, but several of his contemporaries in the Middle East (Sedat of Egypt, Hassan the elder of Syria) referred to him as a ‘lunatic’. Anyway, his student followers (very well organized by Soviet trained Revolutionary Guard personnel) stormed the American Embassy one morning and the shit hit the fan. All who were in the embassy were taken hostage to force America to return the Shah to Iran for trial. The consulate building was nearby but not part of the embassy complex. 6 Foreign Service employees were able to sneak out and hide in the Canadian Ambassador’s residence.
And that’s what Argo is about, the time these 6 Americans spent in Iran and the joint effort by the CIA and the Canadian Embassy to get them home. The problem was, with them escaping, they were not nearly as safe as the Americans who were taken hostage. The whole world was watching the hostage crisis and if those people were harmed the US could justify an armed response and our lives would be easier today. But the 6 who were hiding out could reasonably be classified as spies and executed.
Enter CIA extraction expert Toby (Ben Afflack, Gigli). He plans to extract the 6 by pretending that they are part of a Canadian (no conflict, their oil interests are all in North America, Africa, and down under) film crew. He takes on the administrative fuckery that will allow him to fly in by himself and make it seem like he brought 6 people with him. Legendary make up artist, Planet of the Apes among others, John Chambers (played by John Goodman) is apparently so cool he did jobs for the CIA occasionally and had security clearance (real person, actually a make up wizard, actually an American hero working in Hollywood, badass) comes up with a middle easterny sci-fi script and creates a fake production company and hires fake actors to make a fake movie.
I have to hand it to Afflack in the director’s chair, the man can sustain intensity. He does it for the whole film. There isn’t really a calm moment in the film till its all over. And, honestly, this is such an amazing story there’s no need to dramatize it. Goodman is a badass and Allen Arkin is his usual awesome self as a conspiring producer. This may be the best film I’ve seen this year. Gonna have to think on it.
Anyway, go see it. Argo fuck yourself.