Argo presents a story that happened behind a very public hostage taking of american embassy personnel during the Iranian revolution. It might have been compared to Zero Dark Thirty, which is also a film about actual events. The latter is a film about the hunt and killing of Osama bin Laden. The former is about a group of american embassy staffers who made it out just in time to see their colleagues blindfolded and taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries.
Argo gives us compassionate heroes, spies willing to sacrifice their careers and scared people coming through in the end. Argo is not precise military operations. Argo is a cover for extracting six Americans in the midst of revolutionary Iran. Argo is fake film making, Argo is a film about a fake movie. There lies the irony.
Acting in and directing Argo is Ben Afleck. He plays Tony Mendez, as CIA officer, along with Alan Arkin and John Goodman. His character created a fake Canadian production film crew to smuggle six American embassy employees who somehow escaped the storming of the embassy by an Iranian mob.
The plan involved flying the group out through the airport using Canadian passports. It worked. It is a very nice story. It is a feel good story. And it really happened.
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