argo

movies:  Ben Affleck is easily becoming one of the most interesting people in Hollywood.  It is just amazing to think that the guy who starred in Sum Of All Fears and Gili is now a critically acclaimed director.  But he is.  And this weekend he brings us the third movie he has directed, Argo.  Argo is the true story of the extraction of six Americans hiding out at the home of the Canadian Embassader in Tehran Iran during the hostage situation that began in 1979 and ended in 1981.
The story is told from the point of view of CIA agent Tony Mendez, played by Affleck.  Faced with the problem of trying to get these six people out of Iran he concocts the crazy idea to go into Iran posing as a fake movie crew creating a seemingly real movie and using the people he is trying to rescue as his crew scouting for locations for a science fiction film called Argo.  From the moment the plan is hatched, it seems doomed to fail.  The idea is crazy enough, but the powers that be in Washington D.C. are also not supporting Mendez.  But he presses on, and pursues his mission to save these people, no matter how long the odds continue to get.
Along the way we get to meet some truly unforgettable characters played by nothing short of unforgettable actors.  Mendez's boss Jack O'Donnell, played by Brian Cranston, is torn from the moment the movie begins to when it ends.  He is unsure of when and how to support his agent, when to follow orders from above.  Cranston brings the same intensity to this performance in some his most excited moments that he brings to Breaking Bad, only this time we seem him use that authority to fight for the lives of people rather than against it.  John Goodman and Alan Arkin are comedy gold as the duo from Hollywood helping to bring this fake movie to its most real actualization without ever making it.  They are both so delightfully jaded and tired of politics of Hollywood that everything they say comes out as much needed break from how tightly wound the rest of the story is (including the movies most memorable line "Ar-go fuck yourself").  Our hostages at the Embassador's house (sorry i'm not rattling off six names but just trust me they are all noteworthy) bring exactly what they need to to their situation.  Not fear, because they believe they are safe in hiding, but rather a claustrophobic sense of boredom and stir-craziness after not being able to go even on to the back porch for some fresh air.  Watching them just sit and wait every time the story cuts back to them gives a greater sense of time passing  during their stay in this home, which were it not for their circumstance would be a dream home, than any time stamp in the corner.  And then their are the two scene stealers, Kyle Chandler and Zeljko Ivanek, who between the two of them have a total of about 5 minutes of screen time as White House staff members sitting in on the CIA's plans.  It seemed that every time they showed up it was just a reminder of how deep the talent pool in this movie really was, particularly as each got their chance to go toe to toe with Cranston in tense moments.
But really the credit has to be given to Affleck, not as an actor - though he was fantastic, but as a director.  All of the performances mentioned were so great because of how well they functioned within his vision of how to tell this story.  Everyone mentioned above, which by the way is basically every significant charcter in the movie, had an important role to play in the outcome of the plot.  And they functioned exactly as they needed to further the story and build the tension that kept you on the edge of your seat till the very end.  (side note:  I don't know if I have ever seen a movie besides Apollo 13 that did such a good job of making me hang on the edge of my seat about an event in history I already knew the outcome of.  Not only was I excited to see how the story got from beginning to end, but I actually doubted that our heroes would survive at all despite the fact that the history books already told me they did.)  The other real trick of the movie that falls to Affleck is how concise it is.  There is not a single shot in the movie that didn't have a purpose in being their - everything from the ability to give different looks and feels (cold steady cam in the CIA offices and hand shaky hand helds all over Tehran) to different settings to showing found footage in fullscreen to further make you feel like you were watching something from back in 1980, and their wasn't a single plot point that wasn't important and resolved by the end of the movie.  Even the somewhat cheesy part at the end when Mendez comes back to his estranged family was validated by the text at the end of the movie stating that he in real life he did reunite with them.  That could have been cheese meant for a feel good end but instead was given a real reason.  And then for further hammering home of how tight a movie Affleck made, over the credits we get to see side by side pictures of either characters or scenes from the movie with their news photos or peoples passport photos right next to them.  The likenesses are so striking it just makes you appreciate what you saw more.
In his three efforts as a director Ben Affleck has managed to all but completely erase his downward spiral from once promising actor to Gili.  It truly is amazing.  And in Argo we see his best effort yet, stepping out from the streets of Boston in his previous two films to tell a brilliant spy thriller.  I don't know if it will earn him recognition from the academy or not, that may depend on other movies yet to be released.  But even if that is not the case, he is making great movies that fill a very specific place in the movie industry:  exciting movies geared towards adults.  As surprising as Affleck's success is, the fact the he would have chosen that void to fill (left mostly by the passing of Tony Scott) seems almost unlikely, but he has done it.