Ben
Affleck’s reputation as a director is growing by the day. With movies like
“Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town”, he’s hardly made a wrong move. Argo though
from a personal stand point is a ‘good movie’ and I’d be flattering myself if
I’d have used a more extravagant superlative. The movie is slick, as you’d
expect a Ben Affleck movie to be, but once I was done watching it I wondered
what all the fuss was about.
Hollywood
off-late seems to be obsessed with the idea of adapting true stories for the
screen with movies like “Zero Dark Thirty”, “The Impossible”, and Argo of
course. Ben Affleck’s attempt to pull off this highly over the top and
circumstantial true story which involves the exfiltration of a bunch of
American diplomats seeking refuge at the Canadian consulate in war torn Iran,
is commendable but you’re never really satisfied with what you’re being shown.
True stories are often tricky to handle, as a director can easily
over-dramatize events for the screen which sometimes takes away from how events
actually unfolded. Affleck though is not guilty of making this mistake as he
seamlessly tells us the whole story with crisply shot short scenes and a quick
story progression.
Affleck the director is on quite a high but somewhere on his way there he seems to have lost the plot in terms of acting. In Argo Affleck plays a CIA exfiltration specialist and although I do understand that US Government officials are inherently meant to be stoic, Affleck is just plain dead throughout the movie with a poker face for which even Daniel Craig as 007 would have a tough time deciphering a tell. The saving grace though is the performances by Alan Arkin and John Goodman who play the producer and director respectively of the fake movie which is being used as a cover to extract the American diplomats. The ensemble cast does a decent job throughout the movie as they enjoy majority of the on screen time (thankfully taking some of the limelight away from Affleck who I thought was just dreadful in this role). Bryan Cranston also does a cameo although those who’ve seen ‘Breaking Bad’ will agree that his acting prowess could have been better explored.
Argo as I
said before is nothing out of the ordinary. It being a true story( although I
found it to be extremely circumstantial, but it being true I don’t really have
much of a say here ) , you’re always in touch with the end and the movie at
times fails to keep your attention as thoughts tend to progress towards the
inevitable ending. I must say though that Argo is a definite one time watch for
those who enjoy slick and fast paced movies, but if you’re looking for a story
to go with it you will be a little disappointed. Argo probably has one of the
best “one-liners” across all films in 2012, but after watching the movie you
might wonder if the makers might have unintentionally ended up taking a dig at
themselves. All I've got to say is “ AR-GO f**#k YOURSELF”.
