Lester: Argo F***k Yourself
Director:
Producer:
Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney
Cast:
Bryan Cranston as Jack O’Donnell
Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel
Clea DuVall as Cora Lijek
Kyle Chandler as Hamilton Jordan
Tate Donovan as Bob Anders
Tom Lenk as Rodd
Christopher Stanley as Tom Ahern
Taylor Schilling as Christine Mendez
Rory Cochrane as Lee Schatz
Music:
Story:
A dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.
Review:
When you see ‘Based on a True Story’ you think how true is the true story? Especially when it’s CIA related.. But, you’d be surprised how accurate this movie is. Ben Affleck is a great director and is critically acclaimed for his movies- ‘The Town’ and ‘Gone Baby Gone’. Those two were wonderful. This movie is no different.
The movie starts with a voice over telling us about the history of Iran, mixed with some real pictures and some drawings. Then we see what happened due to USA’s interference in the politics of Iran. This eventually led to the rebellion that led to the main story of the movie. This rebellion eventually leads to six Americans at the American embassy in Iran to escape and take refuge in the Canadian ambassador’s house.
There, they stay for over 70 days before the CIA takes notice of them and plans a rescue mission. They go through a list of plans to get them out.. All of them are bad. Ben Affleck’s character, Tony Mendez comes up with the best bad plan to get them out. He decides to make a fake movie and those 6 American’s would be the crew. They would be scouting for shooting locations. Tony, then goes around assembling the team for the movie. He finds that in John Goodman and Alan Arkin. From here, he goes to Tehran to save them.
The movie is well made and it blends the real footage with the movie nicely. The acting was wonderful, especially Ben Affleck’s. His performance was marvelous. He should win an oscar for this. The music complimented the scenes very well. The end kept the audience at the end of the chair waiting to see what would happen. At some point, people would expect a shoot out scene, but that doesn’t happen. That was a good thing. The set design and the costumes and the make was also very good. If I didn’t any better, I’d have thought that this movie was made in the 70’s.
The movie had hints of dark comic elements into it. This was a brilliant movie after so very long. Ben Affleck’s acting as one of the highlights of the movie.
Final Verdict:
8.5/10
Galactica 