Argo Is a Boatload of Thrills

Fair warning: the next Canadian that I meet is getting kissed hard and long – by way of explanation, I'll simply whisper Argogently into his ear.

Argo is the title of the taut, entertaining Ben Affleck political thriller just released, and its story is based (with some dramatic license) on previously-classified, real-life events reported in 2007 by Joshuah Bearman in the excellent Wired article "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran."

Essentially, the story is this: In 1979, Iranian anti-American sentiment hit a fever pitch when the United States allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the US in order to receive medical treatment for late-stage cancer. Iranian students and Islamist militia who had already been protesting daily outside the American embassy then climbed the embassy's walls and took over the building, and almost everyone inside the embassy was taken hostage, only to be released 444 harrowing days later as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated president. Six individuals working in the American visa office were able to escape capture, however, due to the fact that their office had an exit that lead directly out onto the street – and this group of six ultimately found sanctuary at the the home of Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador for Iran.

As months passed with no sign of Iran's revolutionary fervor ebbing, the governments of Canada and the United States realized these six people would need to be removed covertly from Iran before they were discovered – and possibly executed as spies – by the Revolutionary Guard. Initial plans were cobbled together at the CIA: could the six bicycle 300 miles to the Turkish border? Could they be given new identities as Canadian teachers or agriculturalists?

Ultimately, exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez (played by Affleck) suggests a plan so outlandish, it's approved. In the wake of sci-fi box-office successes like Star Wars and Planet of the Apes, Mendez will escort the six Americans from Iran by posing as a Canadian film crew scouting desert locations for a middle-eastern-flavored sci-fi film named Argo. Mendez contacts a friend he'd collaborated with previously, Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (played brilliantly by John Goodman, who is guaranteed an Academy Award nomination for this role), and a cover story begins to take shape as a film is chosen, an office rented, promotional advertising procured.

Ironically, at this point, Bearman's Wired narrative actually becomes even more interesting than the events that play out in the movie:

All they needed now was a film — and Chambers had the perfect script. Months before, he had received a call from a would-be producer named Barry Geller. Geller had purchased the rights to Roger Zelazny’s science fiction novel, Lord of Light, written his own treatment, raised a few million dollars in starting capital from wealthy investors, and hired Jack Kirby, the famous comic book artist who co-created X-Men, to do concept drawings.

Along the way, Geller imagined a Colorado theme park based on Kirby’s set designs that would be called Science Fiction Land; it would include a 300-foot-tall Ferris wheel, voice-operated mag-lev cars, a “planetary control room” staffed by robots, and a heated dome almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building. Geller had announced his grand plan in November at a press conference attended by Jack Kirby, former football star and prospective cast member Rosey Grier, and several people dressed like visitors from the future. Shortly thereafter, Geller’s second-in-command was arrested for embezzling production funds, and the Lord of Light film project evaporated.

Sadly, there is no mention of Science Fiction Land in Argo – no robot wait staff, no voice-operated mag-lev cars. I can understand why the screenwriters left this piece out but I also imagine them gnashing their teeth with frustration at the thought that such a delicious factoid couldn't somehow be incorporated into their film's exposition...

After the fake film studio is created and we leave poolside Los Angeles, Argo's tone darkens, rolls tensely on to its occasionally overwrought denouement. As film critic Anthony Lane points out in his review of the film, Tony Mendez's CIA account of the last moments the six spend in Iran paints the escape from Tehran as fairly anticlimactic ("smooth as silk"). Affleck, though, chooses to amp up the adrenaline factor with a high-speed, Kalashnikov-laden car chase, the one hackneyed flaw in an otherwise ripping yarn.

While Argo bills itself as a political thriller with comedic moments, I think it is actually something much more substantive. Through a combination of news footage and comic panels, post-World-War Iranian-American relations are laid bare in the first five minutes of the film, explaining how the events in 1979 were set in motion in 1953, when the United States undermined Iran's elected government and replaced it with the brutal, US-friendly Shah. This segment asks Americans to move beyond the national narrative we've created for ourselves as heroes and benefactors to acknowledge that in our thirst for oil, our government is capable of playing colonialist puppet master in the Middle East – to the detriment of all involved parties.

At the same time, the film also conveys a kind of wild optimism about government that is interesting to examine on the eve of a presidential election 30 years in the future. Despite decades of now-accepted political rhetoric to the contrary (think former President Reagan's twin quotes, "Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," and "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help,") some of our greatest unsung superheroes are, in fact, government employees. Just perhaps, government is not a drain on progress, employment, or the American dream, as some now claim ... perhaps a strong government is actually an asset that keeps Americans safer, performing the work that no individual or private organization can take on.

Not a bad set of take-away lessons from a night at the movies...