Argo
This review is a part of the Best Picture Project: a review of every single Academy Award winner for the Best Picture category. Argo is the eighty fifth Best Picture winner at the 2012 Academy Awards.
I have a love-hate relationship with Ben Affleck's political thriller Argo. Conceptually, I love the idea of a group of captive diplomats being smuggled out of the Iran Hostage Crisis by a party pretending to shoot some schlocky science fiction movie. Knowing this actually happened is another creator of intrigue here. If you're a history buff though, Argo is easily one of cinema's most conflicted reports. Heightened scenarios, the dismissal of other country's influences in this mission, and other flat out lies have likely hindered Argo's staying power over the years, since these anecdotes have superseded the film's pros. If you can recall some of my other reviews, I don't mind embellishments if it makes for a better film. What I do have a problem with are the incredibly flat "villains", and the insinuation that an entire country's civilization is either barbaric or cowardly. These characters don't feel like people, and that's troublesome when you're looking at an entire country. As someone that is friends with many people from Iran, it's a poor look I can't get behind. Politics aside, it's also just terrible writing.
Affleck does succeed in other ways, though, and greatly so. His ability to build tension is oh so prevalent here, especially when you see how many moves separate the diplomats, the party led by Tony Mendez, and those trying to stop both groups. It's like a complicated 3 dimensional game of chess played at a hyper speed. Not only that, but Argo is rather funny as well (and even darkly so), adding more than just relief to the film; the jokes are often and heavy enough to make Argo at least wholly entertaining in more than one way. Ignore all of the countless other problems, and it's hard to imply that Argo isn't a well made film in its barest form.
The Argo team, saying cheers before taking on their rescue mission.
For me, Argo's legacy resembles the film well enough. It is a major film on its first watch, with so many twists and turns. You will likely be at the edge of your seat. After that initial introduction to the film, any revisits (for me) feel good, but not nearly as exhilarating. It's certainly tough for work of this caliber to continue being a heart pounding ride each and every time you watch the film. It could be because of the emotional detachment from everyone and anything that aren't the Mendez team and the trapped diplomats. Argo is fantastic on the surface, but any form of digging (for accuracy, for narrative depth, for world building outside of the perspectives of the protagonists) will reveal the ephemeral nature of Argo: a mission based on a fake film that was going to be cast aside anyway. As soon as that mission ends, this Argo is also completely finished, and any rewatch will just elicit memories of that first watch. Being this problematic also won't help a legacy, mind you.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.