Movie Review: Argo

You know what? Ben Affleck is turning out to be a very fine director. After adaptations of Dennis Lehane's Gone Baby Gone and Chuck Hogan's Prince of Thieves (under the title The Town), Affleck's third directorial venture Argo, inspired by the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, eschews run-of-the-mill thriller elements for a gripping action drama, that of CIA specialist Tony Mendez's (Ben Affleck) daring rescue operation to exfiltrate six US diplomats from Iran following the storming of US embassy by its revolutionary guards. The undercover operation begins when Mendez, with the help of a famous Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and a successful producer Lester (Alan Arkin), sets up a fake movie (titled Argo) to rescue the six people by making them pose as his film crew and smuggle them out of the country before they are identified as missing. Devoid of the conventional tricks to induce edge of the seat moments, Affleck weaves a story that blends the right amount of humour, drama and tension as it trundles its way to a heart-pounding climax. The tale may not be a direct commentary on US's foreign policy, but it does leave subtle, yet thought provoking, hints about how the crisis has led to its own undoing.