Argo

In the audaciously old-fashioned late-’70s political thriller “Argo,” director/leading man Ben Affleck is taken far away from the homely setting of his first two directing gigs — Boston-based crime dramas “Gone Baby Gone" and “The Town” — but somehow appears to be right at home. His third time in the big chair sees him transported well over 5,000 miles east from his native state of Massachusetts to a revolutionist Iran, where he tells the stranger-than-fiction true tale of a half-dozen U.S. diplomats hiding in Tehran and the CIA man who concocts a wildly unorthodox plan to secretly extract them.

That man is played by Affleck, who, in spite of the exotic relocation, directs “Argo" with the same ease, confidence and unabashed brio he wielded in his triumphant 2007 debut and its captivating 2010 follow-up. He is tasked with tackling and telling a complex real-life story kept top secret by the American government until 1997. In turn, he delivers an instantly engrossing, bitingly satirical espionage drama infused with raw excitement, eye-popping tension and a surprisingly hefty amount of rib-tickling humour. He has also managed to make what is currently 2012's best film — so much for the fading star of “Gigli.”

The year is 1979, as reflected not just in the film’s garish fashion sense (dirt-brown bell-bottoms and glasses the size of windshields are in no short supply) but also in its Sidney Lumet-esque hardboiled edge. Footage of the Middle East in revolt floods the American news stations in the lead-up to the overthrowing of the opulent, oppressive Shah by his own people. When the Shah is granted asylum in the U.S. to treat his cancer, the situation in Iran intensifies, with rioting, Star Spangled Banner-burning citizens demanding the Shah return to the country to be tried and ultimately hanged.

The nerve-frying tone is set in an opening sequence soaked in suspense, as the American embassy in Tehran is stormed and seized by Islamic militants. Affleck shoots this set-piece as if it were the calamitous climax of a zombie movie: a horde of rebels beat at the weakening entrance gate, break their way through doors and windows and, once inside the building, scramble down corridors in search of American staffers. 52 diplomats are bound, gagged and held hostage in the embassy while six, unbeknownst to the invaders, slip out via the back door.

These six seek refuge in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber, “Titanic”), who puts himself at great risk in opening his door to them — outside, American sympathisers are hanged from cranes in broad daylight. Super-sideburned agents at the CIA headquarters in the U.S. hurriedly slap together sneaky schemes to stealthily rescue those who are soon to become Iran’s most wanted, but none of them seem feasible. That is, until top extractor Tony Mendez (a shaggy-haired, scraggly-bearded Affleck, underplaying his part to terrific effect) thinks up an ingenious plan: fabricate a fake sci-fi B-pic and convince Iranian officials that the six American fugitives are a Canadian movie crew on an especially jeopardous location scouting trip.

The non-existent “Argo,” inspired as Mendez watches “Battle for the Planet of the Apes,” is to be a space opera very much in the vein of the then-recently released “Star Wars.” A script is assembled, posters are created, actors are cast and an article in Variety is written. In on the game are sizzlingly cynical veteran Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”) and Oscar-winning make-up artist John Chambers (John Goodman, “The Artist”), whose interaction with Mendez and each other provides much of the film’s humour. “Can you teach someone to be a director in a day?" questions Mendez. Chambers quips: “You could teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day.”

The satirical, Hollywood-nudging humour of “Argo" (the real movie) surprisingly never jars with the bone-rattling intensity. In one risky sequence, Affleck boldly combines both elements, intercutting between a costumed read-through (featuring actors who strongly resemble background extras from “Flash Gordon") and a scene in which American hostages are lined up in a manky basement, supposedly to be shot (in fact, the rifles aren’t loaded). There’s a striking parallel here: the people pulling the strings in both situations are putting on a show, and it’s all bullshit.

We are always aware of the mounting threat presented by the militants and the Iranian people, and how Mendez’s scheme could crumble to pieces at any second. Affleck frequently cuts to the overtaken American embassy, where hostage-takers and local children painstakingly piece together shredded files revealing the identities of the six individuals missing from their current stash. In one terrifying scene, a crowd of Iranians push and shove at the exterior of a car containing Mendez and his band of jittery, Western rescuees. In another, a disgruntled shopkeeper points and bellows at them in the middle of a crowded marketplace. But there is humour here too, as one of the Americans, posing as a cinematographer, haplessly peers down the wrong end of a view-finder.

And then there’s the climax, in which Affleck intercuts between the chasing, hotheaded militants, a Hollywood studio where a ringing phone begs to be answered, and of course an Iranian airport, where freedom is within arm’s reach. Truth be told, nothing as action-packed as anything shown on-screen during these heart-pounding scenes really happened in 1980 — in reality, the plan went quite smoothly. But Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio (a shoo-in for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award) know how to work their audience, and can’t resist the urge to thrill.

To describe “Argo” as gripping would be to undermine the grasp in which it holds us. It grabs us in its opening and refuses to let go. At times it shakes us, at others it just keeps us in its clutches, and sometimes it tickles us. In the end, it has squeezed every last droplet of tension out of us, leaving us to walk out exhausted from all the suspense but ultimately relieved, satisfied and fulfilled. It is with “Argo" that Affleck has developed into a master filmmaker with an understanding of story, character and drama — this is stirring, old-school entertainment with a great sense of timing, setting and humour.

10/10