Argo (2012 film)
Argo is a 2012 American biographical historical drama thriller film directed, produced by, and starring Ben Affleck. The screenplay, written by Chris Terrio, was adapted from the 1999 memoir The Master of Disguise by U.S. C.I.A. operative Tony Mendez and the 2007 Wired article "The Great Escape: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran"[3] written by Joshuah Bearman and edited by Nicholas Thompson. The film deals with the "Canadian Caper", in which Mendez led the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran, Iran, under the guise of filming a science-fiction film during the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis.
Argo
- The Master of Disguise
by Antonio J. Mendez - "The Great Escape: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran"
by Joshuah Bearman
- Ben Affleck
- George Clooney
- Grant Heslov
- Ben Affleck
- Bryan Cranston
- Alan Arkin
- John Goodman
- August 31, 2012 (Telluride)
- October 12, 2012 (United States)
120 minutes[1]
United States
English
$44.5 million[2]
$232.3 million[2]
The film, which also has Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman in supporting roles, was released in the United States on October 12, 2012. It was produced by Grant Heslov, Affleck, and George Clooney.
Argo received widespread critical acclaim for the acting (particularly Arkin and Goodman's), Affleck's direction, Terrio's screenplay, the editing, and Desplat's score. Commentators and participants in the actual operation criticized failures in historical accuracy. The film received seven nominations at the 85th Academy Awards and won three, for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
The film also earned five Golden Globe Award nominations: it won Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, and Alan Arkin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. It won Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Arkin was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. It also won Best Film, Best Editing and Best Director at the 66th British Academy Film Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for Best Screenplay, and 37th Hochi Film Award for Best International Picture.
Plot[edit]
On November 4, 1979, Iranian Islamists storm the United States Embassy in Tehran in retaliation for President Jimmy Carter giving the Shah, an absolute monarch who was supported by Western powers, asylum in the U.S. during the Iranian Revolution, for cancer treatment. Sixty-six of the embassy staff are taken as hostages, but six avoid capture and are sheltered in the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor.
With the six escapees' situation kept secret, the U.S. State Department begins to explore options for exfiltrating them from Iran. Agent Tony Mendez, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency exfiltration specialist, is brought in for a consultation. He criticizes the proposals but is at a loss when asked for an alternative. While on the phone with his son, he is inspired by watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes and begins plans for creating a cover story for the escapees: that they are Canadian filmmakers who are in Iran scouting exotic locations for a science-fiction film.
Mendez contacts John Chambers, a Hollywood make-up artist who had previously worked for the CIA. Chambers puts Mendez in touch with film producer Lester Siegel. Together, they set up a phony film production company, publicize their plans, and successfully establish the pretense of developing Argo, a "science fantasy adventure" in the style of Star Wars, to lend the cover story credibility. Meanwhile, the escapees grow restless. The revolutionaries reassemble embassy photographs shredded before the takeover and realize that some personnel are unaccounted for.
Posing as a producer for Argo, Mendez enters Iran under the alias Kevin Harkins and meets with the six escapees. He provides them with Canadian passports and fake identities. Although afraid to trust Mendez's scheme, they reluctantly go along, knowing that he is risking his own life too. A scouting visit to the bazaar to maintain their cover story takes a bad turn when they are harassed by a hostile shopkeeper, but their Iranian culture contact hustles them away from the hostile crowd.
Mendez is told the operation has been cancelled in favor of a planned military rescue of the hostages. He pushes ahead anyway, forcing his boss, Deputy Director Jack O'Donnell to hastily re-obtain authorization for the mission and rebook their cancelled tickets on a Swissair flight. Tensions rise at the airport, where the escapees' new ticket reservations are confirmed only at the last minute, and the head guard's call to the fake production company in Hollywood is answered only at the last second. The escapees board the plane, and at about the same time, the airport authorities are alerted to the ruse. They try to stop them, but the plane is able to take off.
To protect the hostages remaining in Tehran from retaliation, all U.S. involvement in the rescue is suppressed, and full credit is given to the Canadian government and its ambassador (who shuts down the embassy and leaves Iran with his wife as the operation is underway). The ambassador's Iranian housekeeper, who had known about the Americans and lied to the revolutionaries to protect them, escapes to Iraq. Mendez is awarded the Intelligence Star, but due to the mission's classified nature, he receives the medal in secret and has to return it afterward. Mendez returns to his wife and son in Virginia.
The film ends by explaining what happened after the depicted events: the hostages were freed after 444 days, Mendez and Chambers remained friends until Chambers' death in 2001, Bill Clinton returned Mendez's star in 1997 after the Canadian Caper is declassified, and that he lives with his family in rural Maryland.
As the credits roll, President Jimmy Carter is heard commenting on the operation.
Historical inaccuracies[edit]
Canadian versus CIA roles[edit]
After the film was previewed at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival,[38] many critics said that it unfairly glorified the CIA's role and minimized the Canadian government's role (particularly that of Ambassador Taylor) in the extraction operation.[39] Maclean's asserted that "the movie rewrites history at Canada's expense, making Hollywood and the CIA the saga's heroic saviours while Taylor is demoted to a kindly concierge."[40]
The postscript text said that the CIA let Taylor take the credit for political purposes, which some critics thought implied that he did not deserve the accolades he received.[41] In response to this criticism, Affleck changed the postscript text to read: "The involvement of the CIA complemented efforts of the Canadian embassy to free the six held in Tehran. To this day the story stands as an enduring model of international co-operation between governments."[42] The Toronto Star wrote, "Even that hardly does Canada justice."[43]