ARGO (2012)

Rated: R

Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Director: Ben Affleck
Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Argo is a real film and a fake film. The fake film is what the real film is about. Ben Affleck does a masterful job of directing the real film, including himself in the pivotal role. (It must have been weird to see him do his split-second switch from actor to director, yelling "CUT" right after delivering his own lines.)  

The fake film Argo is a cover story to spirit six American diplomats out of Iran during the infamous hostage crisis that began in late 1979 and continued on into 1981. Having overthrown the corrupt Shah,  Islamic militants are hungry to have his head on a platter, but he has been given asylum in the U.S. The American embassy has been stormed and fifty-two Americans have been taken  hostage.  But six others have managed to evade capture and are given shelter in the home of the Canadian ambassador. However,  it's only a matter of time before they are sniffed out and meet a truly unpleasant fate.

Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) is a CIA guy who heads to Iran with the hair-brained scheme (but the best one they have) of turning the six fugitives into Canadian crew members of  the nonexistent  movie--supposedly to be filmed in Iran--to get them out of where they are holed up and on a plane to freedom.   

Affleck and company--with special kudos to the editing and music score--deftly ratchet up the tension and suspense throughout Argo, keeping us on the edge of our gooey gummy seats (don't reach underneath there) from start to finish.  

With any film that is "based upon a true story," as is this one, you can expect a certain amount of embellishment of the truth and dramatic license to be taken, and there is a goodly amount of that in Argo.  But when you look into how the real events of this joint Canadian-CIA operation unfolded, (which weren't revealed publicly until years after the fact) you will see where a little tinkering with the truth was necessary to end up with a film as compelling as Argo. 

Now, let me pander a little to the conspiracy theorist lurking somewhere in all of us. Is it just coincidence, or just COULD it be the timing of this movie's release is designed to coincide with the stirring up of anti-Iranian paranoia over that country's impending nuclear capabilities,  and with Israel ostensibly on the brink of making a preemptive strike? Ya gotta sell it to the public, ya know,  just like some people think the "unthinkable"--that 9/11 was staged to provide our government a rationale for the invasion of  Iraq. 

Well,  I'll leave that kind of speculation up to you. But as they say in the world of comedy: Timing is everything.

Grade:  A -

   

SUNSHINE CLEANING

Rose, (Amy Adams) who makes her living cleaning houses, and her quirky sister Norah (Emily Blunt) need to make more scratch--one of the reasons being that Rose's young son, Oscar, has to go to private school because he got kicked out of public school for licking the walls, licking the teachers, etc. The married guy Rose has known since high school days--and is currently having discreet sex with--is a cop, and he inspires the sisters to start their own lucrative crime scene clean-up service. It's a bloody job, but somebody's got to do it, and Norah and Rose make mopping up after murders and suicides as humorous as that sort of thing can be. Their Dad (Alan Arkin) raised the sisters on his own after their mother took her own life, so doing this kind of work brings up some emotional issues for them.

Just when you think the flick is going to go along like your run-of-the-mill dark comedy, something touching occurs. Rose comforts an elderly woman who's husband has just ended his life, and she begins to feel COMPASSION and EMPATHY for another person. This is the juncture where Sunshine Cleaning makes the unexpected leap forward into something altogether artistic and human.

Norah is an intriguing character in her own right. She scrambles up under a railroad trestle and plays chicken with the train that's thundering toward her. Another powerful scene. We observe that Norah is an adrenalin junkie--she just wants to FEEL something--probably due to the emotions she's repressed about her mother for so long.

The movie was produced by some of the same bunch that produced Little Miss Sunshine,
with Alan Arkin being the one holdover from that film, in which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. As the dad, he's a schemer and a dreamer, and those traits will figure into the ending of the picture-though his role here isn't large enough to garner a repeat of Oscar recognition.

Rose and Norah are looking for some closure, and as they move toward it, they get opportunities to gain some insight into themselves as well (such as Rose's true feelings about being good enough to be someone's sexual partner, but not good enough to be anyone's life partner).


The best films are the ones that can make you alternately (or simultaneously) laugh and cry,
and Sunshine Cleaning gets the job done.

GRADE: A


TIMMY'S TIDBITS: Amy Adams once worked as a hostess at Hooters (guess she thought it was classier than working at that place called "Boobs." )

Back in the day, Alan Arkin was lead singer of the folk group, The Tarriers. He co-wrote Harry Belafonte's huge hit "The Banana Boat Song" (or "Day-O" for those of you who know the lyrics but don't pay any attention to the title).