John Goodman

Argo (2012). Film review of the thriller starring and directed by Ben Affleck

Still from the film Argo (2012)
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Director: Ben Affleck. Warner/Smoke House/GK Films. (15)

THRILLER

 

Producers: Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov.Writer: Chris Terrio. Camera: Rodrigo Prieto. Music: Alexandre Desplat. Sets: Sharon Seymour.

Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Scoot McNairy, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Bob Gunton, Adrienne Barbeau.

SYNOPSIS

Shortly after the deposed Shah of Iran is granted asylum in the United States, angry crowds in Iran gather frequently outside the American Embassy. When the crowd storms the building, six employees escape and hide in the home of the Canadian Ambassador (Garber) and sit it out. Stumped as how to rescue them from a country in turmoil, the CIA’s Tony Mendez (Affleck) comes up with an idea to fake the production of a science fiction movie (Argo), using a location scouting trip to the Middle East as the cover. Despite initial reservation, Affleck travels to Iran and prepares the embassy staff to leave.

REVIEW

Seeing as Iran, Iraq, or general Middle East-bashing has been de rigueur in Hollywood for many years, it is probably no surprise that this presposterously plotted, ‘all Iranian’s are crazy revolutionaries’ thriller was green lighted.

What is more amazing, almost fantastically beyond the realm of probability, is that the story is actually based on real events. It sounds vaguely like Alexandro Jodorowsky’s (actual) plan to first film Dune in the seventies with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Gloria Swanson in the cast. Of course, many years have passed since the events depicted here (1980) and confidential government documents have long since had the dust blown off them, turned into articles (by Joshua Bearman) and now adapted into Hollywood blockbusters (we’ll sidestep the 1981 Canadian TV movie that recounted this story).

A Hollywood film that looks favourably (or at least doesn’t dwell on long since elapsed violence) on Iranian culture and people would be almost too dramatically implausible to ever make it onto a producers desk. This said, Argo is still a very good film from a director/star with considerable talent in creating a slick product.

Affleck looks even more impossibly handsome with a beard like a privet hedge that covers that lantern jaw whilst also managing to look twice as miserable as usual as the hero of the piece. The Mendez character also has suspiciously little to say, rendering him almost mute and one dimensional. We can tell he is a renegade who will disobey orders to get the job done and save the day – who else would a top-flight movie start want to portray?

Perhaps he was mistaking moribund for macho, so the film and leading man only ever roar into life when the top-flight supporting players walk in. Thank heavens for the hilarious Arkin as quick-to-quip Hollywood producer Lester Siegel and Oscar winning make-up maestro John Chambers. These two, armed to the high teeth with expletive strewn Hollywood wit, make a formidable comedic tag-team. They bite at the juicy one-liners that pepper the script with scene-chewing gusto. The plaudits go completely to them. Their frequent cry of “Argo fuck yourself” whenever annoyed is an inspired, smile producing addition.

Affleck fares better on the other side of the camera. Much better in fact. It’s worth noting that despite his huge success as a film star, he has had more artistic success with his work behind the scenes (an Oscar and Golden Globe for best screenplay, Good Will Hunting. His feature directorial debut Gone Baby Gone received good notices across the board) than in front of the lens (we’ll forget the large number of Razzie nominations for worst actor of the year). Despite the broad comedy deployed in the middle of the film (and arguably these are the better sequences. Affleck should try his hand at an outright comedy sometime), the opening embassy storm and later moments of the staff during their escape are staged for all the wound-up tension he could wring out of them. These are scenes made of an escalating, stomach-knotting suspense. Not scary, they play on the apprehension that comes from being completely out of your depth and having to hide in a cellar after dinner. Excellent intuition and understanding for a director that has an immediate effect on the audience.

 

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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

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Director: Stephen Daldry.

Paramount/Scott Rudin/Warner Bros.

DRAMA

Producer: Scott Rudin. Writer: Eric Roth. Camera: Chris Menges. Music: Alexandre Desplat. Sets: K.K. Barrett.

Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Thomas Horn, Zoe Caldwell, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, John Goodman, Jeffrey Wright, Hazelle Goodman.

SYNOPSIS

Young Oskar (Horn) lives in a close and loving household with his parents and Grandmother. His idyllic life is shattered however when his father (Hanks) is killed in one of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. He is bereft but chances upon a key hidden amongst his father’s effects and sets about locating the lock that it fits into.

REVIEW

Daldry is the deft hand behind gentle film’s that have a seam of steel running through them, such as Billy Elliott (working class British boy learns ballet), The Hours (portmanteau period lesbian drama) and The Reader (love story between a teenager and an older woman, who used to supervise in a Nazi death camp). Right choice he was then to direct this odd piece.

9/11 has provided artistic inspiration for a number of playwrights, novelists and filmmakers this past decade. On film, this includes work as diverse as Michael Moore’s incendiary documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Oliver Stone’s Nicholas Cage starring World Trade Center and the acclaimed made-for-television docu-drama Flight 93.

Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, this weepy drama takes a less conventional route, mixing the whimsical adventure of a young boy with Asperger’s syndrome with the emotional fall-out of a disaster. At least Foer was brave to go off on a unique tangent, but it creates very unwelcome feelings in the viewer. Using 9/11 as the springboard for this wish fulfilment yarn seems ghoulish, irresponsible, meretricious. The recurring visual motif of Hanks free-falling for eternity as his son imagines him bravely leaping from the crumbling sky scraper doesn’t help ease the mind.

Neither do some very disturbing aspects of Oskar’s parents that would ring alarm bells with even the most useless social worker, as both seem content to let him wonder off alone around New York, foraging with the homeless or calling on strangers in their homes (“Didn’t you think I’d be raped or murdered?” he asks his mother. “Every hour of every day” is her incredible response).

When it tries to be a gut-wrenching weepy, the film works very well and there are quite a few moments that help get the tears flowing. The performances are striking in that they are stripped back to the very basics (von Sydow doesn’t even speak). Bullock is quietly impressive as Oskar’s mother, slowly sinking into depression, looking and sounding as if her very soul has been sucked out of her. Von Sydow snags an Oscar nomination for that wordless but infinitely expressive performance as Oskar’s mute grandfather. Even the normally carousing Goodman is reduced to trading insults with Oskar in a passive, monotonous tone as if he, like everyone and everything else, is automatically diminished by the events on that day.

The film belongs to Horn though, who is a remarkable find as Oskar and he brings the film to life with a nervous, twitchy energy perfectly in keeping with the bizarre path the narrative takes.