ARGO

FLIX!

Wow.

I know now why critics are no longer calling Argo a long shot for the Academy Awards. Ben Affleck, no matter how you might feel about Good Will Hunting or Dare Devil, has created a masterpiece. Well if this isn't a masterpiece, it's mighty close to it. And I don't throw the term "masterpiece" around lightly. This is Affleck's Pulp Fiction, his My Darling Clementine, his A River Runs Through It.

Affleck tells the uncanny true story - (no, he doesn't add the obligatory female love interest Hollywood bullshit) - of this CIA horrible plot idea to rescue 6 US people held captive in Iran in the late 70's when all of that went south. For all of us alive then, it seems like yesterday, and yet like another lifetime ago.

During the Iran crisis in 1979, as the American Embassy was being stormed in the front, 6 members of the American Consulate team, just casually strolled out through a back door and made it to the Canadian Embassy where they were hidden. The CIA desperately tried to come up with rescue plots as the Carter Administration attempted diplomatic negotiations for the others. The Iranians had no idea how many people had been in the embassy, because officials were able to shred the personnel info before leaving. The Iranians, using child labor, began the arduous process of trying to piece together the shreds of paper to discern identities. It was only a matter of weeks or months before they realized that there were six people missing.

CIA operative Tony Mendez systematically shoots down all of the State Departments lame ideas to rescue these six, and instead hatches what is called the "best of the bad ideas" to get the six home. He decides to engage a charade as a movie producer to get into Iran, and then get the six in question to pose as his film crew. But in order to do this, he has to lay the ground work, which means hiring a producer (who goes through the pile of scripts on his desk and find one with desert scenes called "Argo"), hire a director, have costumes and make-up designed, and actually have a publicity read of the script with the cast in full costume. All of this was noted in Variety and other show biz publications. Mendez then must travel to Morocco, Egypt, and other desert countries before heading to Iran - all in the name of "checking out locations." He then hopes that the Iranians will believe the 6 embassy officials are just part of his film crew, so that they can all just casually fly out.

Ben Affleck plays CIA Operative Tony Mendez with total believability. Keep in mind he was also the director here, so there must have been thousands of other things on his mind. As soon as he yelled "Cut!", he was probably besieged with costumers, lighting people, cinematographers, actors and producers with a plethora of questions, questions, questions. But his performance never cracks and is spot on. Allen Arkin as the pseudo Argo producer is top notch. As is Bryan Cranston as the State Department liaison, and John Goodman as the Hollywood make-up man.

This film was suspense of the highest order. This was tension not seen in film since "Silence of the Lambs." It was a story that was incredible to say the least, but in the wrong hands could have easily been screwed up. Affleck told this story masterfully, cut with a great sense of rhythm. I saw it with my friend Jerry, and afterward we went to dinner. My heart was still beating fast. He said it was the second time he'd seen it, and it still had the same effect on him. And the cool thing was that it really happened. All of it. It wasn't made up, or embellished just make it more appealing for movie audiences. The truth was great enough.

President Clinton finally declassified this story so it could be told, and it is just another in the revelations that President Carter wasn't quite the doofus we were all led to believe he was. But because after this amazing rescue succeeded, it was deemed "classified" and Canada was able to get all the credit. Not until Clinton's decision to de-classify the story was Mendez able to receive his CIA Star, the award he earned (the highest the CIA can give), and the story made public.

This is one of those movies that once seeing I have vowed to own.