As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.
Argo is a true story-based thriller about a group of Americans who become trapped in Iran. They attempt to escape this prison of a country by creating a fake film, and pretending to be the crew on a location scout.
Having gone into this film with “best picture 2013” expectations, I have to say I was very disappointed. There is barely anything remarkable in this film, apart from the incredible source material, which in hindsight would have been a hindrance to any extravagant plot developments, but does not serve as an excuse for the utter shallowness of the characters. I cared more for the Iranian airport officials who they had to pitch their film to than I did for Ben Affleck’s character, and that’s not an exaggeration. The two comic relief characters in the film (Lester Siegel and John Chambers) however, were very well written and performed. This would be great, but they’re put in all the wrong places, often interrupting a good set piece or some well-delivered tension, which was very irritating.
Speaking of tension, it is probably the film’s most outstanding feature. I’ve been giving Argo a hard time so far, but it was real edge-of-your-seat stuff, and great fun to watch. Handheld/Shaky Camera hasn’t been used this well since the Bourne series, and that’s saying something. It really elevated the nervous atmosphere and added a sense of realism that is often absent in big-budget thrillers. And despite me not caring in the slightest about the fate of the characters, I was still biting my nails in the extremely tense airport sequence.
If this film had been shot interestingly, I would be complaining a lot less about its success at the Academy Awards, but it wasn’t shot interestingly, so I will continue to complain. It’s just tirade of shot/reverse shot, shot/reverse shot, establishing shot, shot/reverse shot, and it’s boring as hell. This seems to be where Ben Affleck often fails as a director, his shot composition is just basic most of the time, save for a few nice-looking ones every now and again, and although it’s kind of nit-picking considering it’s not meant to be a feast for the eyes, I can’t help but feel he could have tried a bit harder.
Overall Argo is a good film, not an artistic masterpiece, not a fascinating character study, but a well-made, nerve wracking thriller. I’ve not had much good to say about it, but that’s because it succeeds at all the fundamentals, and the majority of its achievements lie within the basics of filmmaking. The actors are good, the script is good, the shots do their job and it’s not boring. However, the only thing I would consider above average in the film is the source material and the tension, which is delivered and set up extremely well throughout.