Shedding light on the incredible true events of the 1979
Iran Hostage Crisis, Director Ben Affleck stars as CIA evacuation specialist
Tony Mendez. After the US Embassy in Tehran is stormed by Militants in 1979 and
more than fifty staff are taken hostage, six manage to escape into the custody
of the Canadian Ambassador where they remain hidden for weeks while the State
Department and CIA try to figure out a way of extracting them from the most
watched and most anti-American city in the world. Mendez has the idea of
creating a fake movie and giving himself and the six hidden embassy staff fake
identities as Producers, Scriptwriters and the like, on a location scouting assignment
before simply flying out of the country. The idea is met with scepticism by the
CIA and State Department as well as the hidden six but with no other viable
options, Mendez is given the green light.
Despite co-writing Good
Will Hunting with Matt Damon in the mid 90s, Ben Affleck soon became known
for his celebrity relationships and mediocre performances in overblown and critically
disappointing films such as Pearl Harbor and Armageddon.
It came as a surprise to many then that Affleck’s Directorial debut Gone Baby Gone was as good as it was and
he then followed this up with another critical success The Town in 2010. With Argo,
Affleck is now three for three and seems to be going from strength to strength as
a Director.
