I bet a vendor of United States flags does great business in certain Middle East nations. “How many ‘Great Satan’ flags today, ma’am? Just three? Ok, do you need the lighter fluid to go with that or can I interest you in this version — the stars contain phosphorus; they’ll ignite at the slightest friction!” I have come to the following conclusions with respect to the United States vis-à-vis the Middle East: 1) The United States never has clean hands. 2) Occasionally, a set of Middle Eastern peoples needs to react [read: retaliate] for an encroachment, perceived or legitimate. 3, and most importantly) Sometimes this action goes beyond reasonable, beyond unreasonable, and well into the territory of “for the love of God, USA, why oh why are we as a nation not putting more attention into making a non-oil based economy?”
In 1979, Irani protestors seized the American embassy in Tehran and held hostages. Oh, they were justified in doing something – the US was harboring their deposed Shah, the same man Americans had forcibly made the head of Iran years earlier. This action, however, went beyond overkill. There was blood in streets and in the fevered anti-US rhetoric that saturated Tehran. In the rout of the embassy, six Americans slipped out and fled to the house of the Canadian ambassador, where they stayed indefinitely. They weren’t prisoners, but they weren’t free either. And they had no choice but to stay until either somebody figured out how to extract them from Iran or until the militants in charge of the embassy figured out where the missing Americans were hiding.
Turns out the former was acted upon slightly ahead of the latter and so a plan was hatched – disguise the Americans as a Canadian film crew scouting a location for Argo, a cheap Star Wars rip-off. If this were fiction, you’d call it stupid. If this story were not true, I would have discounted it as factually challenged to the point of tiresome … like in Taken when Liam Neeson poses for French just by carrying a grocery bag with a baguette in it. There is a weird dark comedy in the acknowledgment of not only how stupid this plan is, how catastrophic the consequences if it fails, but how there really isn’t a better one. CIA operation head Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston) actually concedes to superiors with resignation, “this is best bad plan we have.”
It’s hard to know exactly how much of Argo is true. The case was declassified in 1997; who knows what details were fudged in the succeeding 18 years of unknowable and 15 more of screenplay fodder? Argo will be remembered for the intensity of the denouement, but what shouldn’t get lost is the comedy: to sell 
the lie, the state department actually had to go to a great deal of trouble. They had to find a script, Hollywood insider John Chambers (John Goodman), and producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). The team then had to purchase the script, draw up posters, and run ads advertising the fake film. This culminates in a full costumed public cast script reading in which, quizzed by a reporter on the mythological origin of the film title, Greek-challenged Siegel out of frustration blasts, “it means Argo fuck yourself.” In turn, this becomes a rallying cry for the mission.
It’s time we kind-of acknowledged Ben Affleck is a grown up. We don’t have to apologize or anything. There’s still a Gigli or Pearl Harbor for every Gone, Baby, Gone or The Town. But perhaps it’s time we start noticing things like CIA Operative Tony Mendez (Affleck) carries this film, and I didn’t hate him for it. And, let’s face it, this wasn’t fiction. It felt very real, very dangerous. And as such, Argo makes for the best edge-of-your-seat film in many crescent moons.
Now why are the historical recreations from events of my childhood so much better than the historical recreations from other eras? Is this me? Is it something about reliving the events of my childhood with greater perspective? See, I don’t think this is the case. But am still loathe to explain why Milk, Miracle and Argo are all outstanding true story recreations come to life while, say, World Trade Center fizzled and popped like an egg in a microwave.
What’s that? United 93 was good? Argo fuck yourself.
Once there were six Yanks in Iran
Hiding from Ayatollah any way that they can
Movie crew is the ruse
What’s there to lose?
Clearly this is the very best laid bad plan
[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”11″ size_format=”px”]I mean, except for their lives, obviously … oh and the life of the CIA operative … and the Canadian ambassador, and his wife, and their housekeeper. Oh, and the prestige of the United States, and the trust of the international world, and our national dignity … I mean, can you imagine if it were found out the United States of all countries attempted an extraction of personnel with a flimsy disguise and zero death count? C’mon.[/typography]
Rated R, 120 Minutes
D: Ben Affleck
W: Chris Terrio
Genre: those ugly Carter years
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Americans who lived through the hostage crisis
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Irani nationalists
