Why You Liked … Argo

Man, seventies fashion didn’t treat us kindly, did it?

Fashion isn’t the only thing that’s best left in the seventies, but we’ll get to governmental foreign policy in just a moment. Argo is an absolutely superb movie based on the true story of one of the most sublime counterespionage events in history. Or, I guess, known history, because they’re going to save some good shit out the back.

Historical Context

We follow Ben Affleck’s Tony Mendez, a CIA exfil expert set on the mission of extracting six US Embassy workers during the Iran Hostage Crisis that kicked off November 4, 1979. It follows the real-life Canadian Caper, and on the morning of Sunday, January 27, 1980, the full eight-person party passed through passport control at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, boarded a Swissair flight to Zürich, and escaped. The great prestige was that Mendez set up the Embassy workers as film crew for the science fantasy movie, Argo. Fake movie, but very real stakes.

So, we know how the movie starts, and we even know the ending. Job done, no need to watch it, right?

Well, not quite. The movie is a sublime take on the real human cost and impact of foreign policy by powerful governments. It’s not trying to make present-day Americans feel bad about being American; it’s showcasing the long-term impact of a couple of ungoverned fuckwits in charge of some of the most powerful machinery in the world: the CIA.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Major Themes

I was alive when the Iran hostage crisis was on TV. We thought it was a simpler time, when we could get away with flares and tie-dyed clothing. It might have been simpler for us, but the Iranian people suffered egregiously. In the movie’s seven-second historical true up, we get a glimpse of what was going on.

According to Time magazine, the Iranian hostage crisis was an entanglement of vengeance and mutual incomprehension. It wasn’t just a bad day at the office. It was a high-stakes international crisis fuelled by a whole lot of history. Iran saw the US as meddling imperialists propping up a dictator, while the US saw Iran as an unpredictable powder keg. Neither side was totally wrong, but neither was totally right, either. Either way, Iran was off the hot vacation spots list.

Argo weaves such a beautiful line between all of this. We don’t really see a lot of Carter or Khomeini in the movie aside from some stock footage, but we get introduced to the panic, fear, and rage that citizens and visitors lived on. Affleck’s Iran is vibrant, lived-in, and terribly real, with no caricature villains or proselytising against the mighty, or about who was right or wrong. What’s real in this movie is the people we follow, and the heroes we almost didn’t meet—Mendez, of course, but also the Canadian ambassadorial staff who risked tremendous consequences if they were caught.

This gives us our first taste of courage. It’s easy to wave flags when you’re safe at home on the couch, but it takes tremendous moxie to shelter fugitives of the state when there’s an active revolution going on right outside your bedroom window.

The CIA couldn’t be seen as complicit, so initially it was all Canada, all the way. This can’t have helped Canada’s relations with Iran, but they did it anyway. It strained diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran for decades. They were eventually restored, but never became particularly strong, and in 2012, Canada tossed in the towel with Iran once again, but this time over Iran’s nuclear programme, not a fake movie. While it’s difficult to know Canadian motives from so far away, the movie portrays them with gentle but unwavering courage. Tyrants should never be allowed to win, and Canada did their small part to ensure six ordinary people didn’t pay the price for the wargames played well above their pay grade.

This humanitarian act is at such odds with the US foreign policy of the time. The past actions of supporting the Shah, and, by inference, his secret police, put the US in a tight spot. The Shah was a brutal autocrat, but he was America’s autocrat, and backing him meant backing every other leader on their payroll. If he fell without US support, who was next? It’s hard to talk your way out when the Ayatollah had the receipts of Pahlavi’s transgressions. Argo takes a movie-scale run at this, but the themes of misguided and harmful policy have been mirrored in lots of popular media, including the Black Ops videogame series. The financial and military backing of the US allowing horrors to be done abroad are tricky to come back from, and make fertile ground for storytellers to land messages to a new generation who didn’t have to watch 1979 TV in fear.

A final major theme the movie lands with power is how the fake movie plot mirrors the power of storytelling in real life. Argo shows how just the right amount of glitz and glamour can make something as real as concrete. It’s a potent message to watch forty-six years after the events. Some things we haven’t learned from—there is just as much spin being produced in boardrooms and from Instagram influencers wanting us to believe, to feel, to become the message.

Storytelling is a powerful tool for good, as shown in Argo, but the movie presents us a signpost. The Iranians were fooled not just because Mendez was a great spy. They wanted to believe Hollywood fancied setting movies in the mysterious Persia. The reality backing Argo was supermodel-thin, and leaves us a question. What are we willing to believe, if we want it enough?

Batfleck

All of this (the tension, the realism, the complex themes) wouldn’t land as well without strong direction. It could run the risk of being historical drama or fanciful fluff. Neither happened, and that’s not an accident. And this brings us to Ben Affleck.

While the acting is all kinds of class in the movie, the stand-out is Affleck. What’s not immediately obvious is that while he starred in Argo, he also directed it. His down-but-not-quite-out Tony Mendez is loveable. We relate to him, and the struggles he’s having since he and his wife separated, leaving him apart from his son. We know Tony struggles with the dual nature required by the Agency versus being a good American.

I feel Affleck must have fought dual struggles of his own: how to direct a good movie while also starring in it. He’s threaded that needle like a pro. There’s no special treatment of his character, no failures of acting or craft allowed. Affleck even pokes fun at his own directing when John Goodman’s John Chambers says you can teach a Rhesus monkey to be a director.

There’s acting, but there’s also the invisible hand. My wife and I have seen Argo probably five or ten times, and despite that, we’re still on the edge of our seats during tense moments. For example, toward the end there’s a scene where our embassy escapees are on the bus between terminal and plane. The driver has trouble getting the bus into gear, and we know soldiers are about to break down a door and get them. The graunching of the gears against the backdrop of the just-act-casual pretence from the US staffers gets me every time. I want to get in that bus and show the driver how to work a stick, for God’s sake.

It’s the combination of visual and narrative techniques that maintain suspense even if you know the movie. It’s a masterclass in how to keep audiences in suspense without using a single crying baby or ringing telephone.

So, What?

Argo is more than just a thrilling spy-slash-escape movie. It’s a masterclass in tension, storytelling, and the power of human resilience. It reminds us that history is rarely black and white, that foreign policy decisions ripple through generations, and that sometimes, the best way out of a bad situation is a damn good story.

It also holds a mirror up to modern audiences. The events of the Iran Hostage Crisis are nearly half a century old, yet we’re still wrestling with the same global power struggles, the same cycles of intervention and consequence, and the same willingness to believe in narratives, whether they’re Hollywood productions or political spin.

And perhaps that’s why Argo remains gripping even on the tenth rewatch. It doesn’t just tell a great story; it reminds us that stories have real power. In the right hands, they can save lives. In the wrong ones? They can bury the truth.

What did you think of Argo? Let me know your thoughts, real or fake, in the comments. If this review gave you a fresh way to look at Argo (or at least made you want to rewatch it while yelling at the bus driver scene) consider dropping a tip on Ko-fi. No forged movie posters or fake production companies required.