January 11: Argo (2012 -- Ben Affleck)

★★★

I’m at a loss to explain all the accolades Argo has been receiving.  Of course there are things I like about the film very much.  For one, the art direction evokes 1980 so well that, from the cars to the clothes to the colors, I can’t deny a bit of a nostalgia tug.  The film looks so familiar to me and yet so forgotten; I like that sensation.  There’s also some good cinematic story-telling here in Affleck’s resurrecting action thriller narrative techniques while sparing the viewer the now-common explosions and frenetic chase scenes we're so used to.  Scenes like the opening assault on the embassy, conversations among the Americans at the Canadian ambassador’s house and the tense exchange in the Iranian market all have a deft economy that creates tension and uncertainty.  And the humor and parody in Argo are fun, too.  Credit Alan Arkin and John Goodman with pulling off some very funny pokes at Hollywood, though the film ultimately goes on to show us how patriotic Hollywood actually is.

And it’s that heavy hand of conventionality that keeps Argo from soaring.  Affleck shows us he can build suspense effectively, but we see he doesn’t sustain the suspense as the film loses its balance at the very points near the end that should be the closer.  There’s tension at the airport as the guards begin to question the Americans, but the sequence goes on far overlong, eventually including the predictable character reversal of the dissenting American escapee.  And shortly after that, when we watch the soldiers chase the airplane in jeeps just as the plane takes off, Hollywood cliches have taken over so visibly that it’s hard to remain in the spell of the movie.  Conventions more hoary than those two would be difficult to find.

Which is only to say that Argo is good, capable entertainment even if it doesn’t break new ground or offer new insights.  There’s some controversy about the film drumming up anger against Iranians in our own time of American/Iranian tension, but the opening historical background certainly explains the anti-American anger of 1979 Iran.  And if that’s not enough, the Iranian housekeeper lies to the Revolutionary Guards in order to protect the Canadians and the Americans and has to go into exile as a result.  Through the history and through the housekeeper character, Argo goes to some length not to condemn the country or its people.  And it manages to create a fun cinematic thrill while doing it.