‘Argo’ a nail-biting thriller

Mendez, a CIA operative, led the rescue of six US diplomats from Tehran, Iran, during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

The film stars Affleck as Mendez with Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman, and was released in North America to critical and commercial success on October 12, 2012.

The film was produced by Grant Heslov, Affleck, and George Clooney. The story of this rescue was also told in the 1981 television movie “Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper”, directed by Lamont Johnson.

“Argo” received seven nominations at the 85th Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (Chris Terrio) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Alan Arkin).

“Argo” also earned five Golden Globe nominations, and won the Best Picture — Drama, and Best Director, while being nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Arkin.

It won the award for the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards with Alan Arkin being nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.

Militants storm the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, in retaliation for that nation’s sheltering the recently deposed Shah.

More than 50 of the embassy staff are taken as hostages, but six escape and hide in the home of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber). With the escapees’ situation kept secret, the US State Department begins to explore options for “exfiltrating” them from Iran. Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), a CIA specialist brought in for consultation, criticises the proposals.

He too is at a loss for an alternative until, inspired at home by watching “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” on TV with his son.

He plans to create a cover story that the escapees are Canadian filmmakers, scouting “exotic” locations in Iran for a similar sci-fi film.

Mendez and his supervisor Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston) contact John Chambers (John Goodman), a Hollywood make-up artist who has previously crafted disguises for the CIA.
Chambers puts them in touch with film producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin).

Together they set up a phony film studio, publicise their plans, and successfully establish the pretense of developing “Argo”, a “science fantasy” in the style of “Star Wars”, to lend credibility to the cover story.

Meanwhile, the escapees grow frantic inside the ambassador’s residence. The revolutionaries re-assemble embassy papers shredded before the takeover and learn that some personnel have escaped. Posing as a producer for “Argo”, Mendez enters Iran and links up with the six escapees. He provides them with Canadian passports and fake identities to prepare them to get through security at the airport.

Although afraid to trust Mendez’s scheme, they reluctantly go along with it, knowing that he is risking his own life too. A “scouting” visit to the bazaar to maintain their cover story takes a bad turn, but their Iranian culture contact gets them away from the hostile crowd.

Mendez is told that the operation has been cancelled to avoid conflicting with a planned military rescue of the hostages.

He pushes ahead, forcing O’Donnell to hastily re-obtain authorisation for the mission to get tickets on a Swissair flight.

Tension rises at the airport, where the escapees’ flight reservations are confirmed at the last minute, and a guard’s call to the supposed studio in Hollywood is answered at the last second. The group boards the plane just as the Iranian guards uncover the ruse and try to stop their plane from getting off the runway.

To protect the hostages remaining in Tehran from retaliation, all US involvement in the rescue is suppressed, giving full credit to the Canadian government and its ambassador (who left Iran with his wife under their own credentials as the operation was underway; their Iranian housekeeper, who had known about the Americans and lied to the revolutionaries to protect them, escaped to Iraq).

Mendez is awarded the Intelligence Star, but due to the classified nature of the mission, he would not be able to keep the medal until the details were made public in 1997. All the hostages were freed on January 20, 1981.

The film ends with President Jimmy Carter’s speech about the Crisis and the Canadian Caper. — Wikipedia.