Though people tend to give Ben Affleck a lot of flack for his less than stellar acting career (which honestly includes far more hits and far less major misses than most give him credit for), a pretty unanimous wave of praise has washed over him ever since he transitioned over to being a director. So far he’s stuck to a pretty familiar format though. His first two films, Gone Baby Gone and The Town, have been set in the same rough neighborhoods of Boston that he had success setting Good Will Hunting in, they’ve been populated by the sort of characters that he grew up living around, and they’ve told fairly simple crime stories. With Argo Affleck steps out of his comfort zone.
Here is a movie set partially in the filmmaking world of L.A. and partially against the chaos of late 70s/early 80s Iran. It tells a complex story of how the C.I.A. created a fake film production as a scheme to get into the country of Iran, find six Americans who were being hunted by the government in Tehran, and sneak them out under everyone’s noises. This is decidedly not the sort of movie that Affleck has directed in the past, it represents the biggest risk he’s taken to date, and, consequently or not, it has resulted in what is probably his best film.
With names like Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Kyle Chandler, and many more stellar actors than could reasonably be named, that success can largely be credited to the fact that Affleck has filled even this film’s smallest roles with amazing actors. But it’s also due to the fact that Argo is the sort of film that requires insane attention to detail due to its period setting and an inspired hand with the camera due to its exotic locals, and Affleck knocks it all out of the park, more than proving himself a capable director of any sort of feature film.
Argo’s best aspect, however, is just how well it works as a thriller. This is a high stakes, dangerous story, and Affleck affectively milks it of every bit of possible tension, using age old storytelling techniques like establishing the stakes, constantly introducing new dangers, and delaying audience gratification as long as possible. Though it’s covering real life events, and many will walk into the film already knowing how it ends, Argo nonetheless will probably be the most nail biting, squirming in your seat movie experience you have this year. And that’s in addition to being an opportunity to see some of your favorite actors with flared hair and gross mustaches.
