Film Review: Argo
On November 4th 1979, the Iranian Government allowed a mob to seize the United States Embassy in Tehran angrily demanding the US extradite their former Shah in order for them to try him in a court of law and have him hung. The movie Argo is a true story about a CIA agent named Antonio “Tony” Mendez who came up with the idea of acting as a filmmaker searching for a location to film his movie in Iran in order to rescue the six Americans who escaped the embassy and took shelter in the home of a Canadian Diplomat. Through connections that Mendez had, he went to Hollywood and gained the assistance of John Chambers, a special effects artist, and a production company to produce believable evidence of an actual movie in progress. Mendez then went undercover to the Canadian Diplomats home to teach the Americans his plan and their roles. After retrieving false passports from Canada they go through the airport security. Running into a bump, they talked themselves out of the situation and taking off in the plane escaping the Iranians. The rest of the Americans held hostage were released January 20th 1981, a total of 444 days in the hands of the Iranians.
Although the movie was very thrilling, it wasn’t 100% accurate. The majority of the movie was actually very accurate, but how much wasn’t? Of course every movie is going to add some dramatization and change things up a bit to make the movie exciting, but believe it or not the CIA did indeed create a fake movie in order to save six Americans in hiding. Mendez was the man who went on the mission, but what the movie doesn’t mention is his partner that went with him. The movie failed to credit “Julio,” his publicly unknown partner. Not only that, but very little credit went to other parties in the escape process. The movie over credits the CIA just a little bit.
A very intense part of the movie was when the mission was called off the night before it was suppose to take place. Resulting in Mendez receiving...