Argo Movie Review

Lester: Argo F***k Yourself

Director:

Ben Affleck

Producer:

Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney

Cast:

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez

Bryan Cranston as Jack O’Donnell

Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel

John Goodman as John Chambers

Clea DuVall as Cora Lijek

Kyle Chandler as Hamilton Jordan

Victor Garber as Ken Taylor

Tate Donovan as Bob Anders

Michael Parks as Jack Kirby

Tom Lenk as Rodd

Christopher Stanley as Tom Ahern

Taylor Schilling as Christine Mendez

Rory Cochrane as Lee Schatz

Music:

Alexandre Desplat

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

New poster for Ben Affleck’s Argo

Argo, being directed by Ben Affleck and starring him, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman, is one of the movies I’ve been looking forward to seeing. The story is apparently based on a ‘Declassified True Story ‘. The trailer was awesome with Areosmith’s ‘Dream On’ as the  background music.

It arrives in the US October 12th.

Here’s the new poster for the movie:

Movie Review: Safe House

 

 

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Producer: Scott Stuber

Writer: David Guggenheim

Cast:

Denzel Washington as Tobin Frost

Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston

Vera Farmiga as Catherine Linklater

Brendan Gleeson as David Barlow

Sam Shepard as Harlan Whitford

Rubén Blades as Carlos Villar

Nora Arnezeder as Ana Moreau

Robert Patrick as Daniel Kiefer

Music: Ramin Djawadi

Story:

Matt Weston is a CIA rookie who is manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, when Tobin Frost the CIA’s most wanted rogue agent is captured and taken to the safe house. During Frost’s interrogation, the safe house is overtaken by mercenaries who want Frost. Weston and Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house.

Review:

‘Safe House’ is what you’d get if Jason Bourne was a 60+ year old guy. The movie borrow ideas from several other movies. The movie had a tinted color which for me, was kind of irritating. The story of the movie is very confusing.

From the first 30 mins of the movie, I had guessed that there was some one feeding the mercenaries information as to the location of Frost (And what a cold name for a rouge agent , Tobin Frost, it’s sure to strike fear in the heart of his enemies). The movie could have been made much better if they had revealed the identity of the leak and then weave a better story around that. But probably the Director wants us to focus on that mystery. There  are too many shoot outs in the movie – If I’m right, there is one near the consulate, one in the safe house, one in the stadium, one in the slums and the last one in the other safe house. There was also many car chases. Maybe the director wanted us to be amazed at the number of shoot outs and car chases he could squeeze into one movie.

But not only is the story that let the movie down, but also the character. Tobin Frost is supposed to be some great CIA Agent who goes rouge. He has killed many agents and he’s an expert at psychological manipulation. So basically the CIA thinks that he is capable of mind control.

The action sequences were not very great either. But on the bright side, Ryan Renolds shows that he can actually act. Denzel Washington’s acting wasn’t  great.  The poster for the movie is uninspiring. The movie has a very cheesy tag line: “No one is safe”

‘Safe House’ tries to be a Bourne kind of thriller but fails miserably. But if you  are going to watch this movie for the senseless action then probably you’d like it.

Final Verdict:   4/10