Grand Piano

For F*** Magazine

GRAND PIANO

Director : Eugenio Mira

Cast : Elijah Wood, John Cusack, Kerry Bishé, Tamsin Egerton, Allen Leech, Don McManus, Alex Winter

Genre : Thriller, Suspense

Opens: : 15 May 2014

Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language)

Elijah Wood trades in his fuzzy feet for dextrous fingers to play pianist Tom Selznick in this suspense thriller. Selznick, a prodigious young talent who crashed and burned after failing to complete an “unplayable” piece five years ago, reluctantly puts on a comeback performance at the behest of his wife, actress Emma (Bishé). Everything is in place, especially the customized Bösendorfer grand piano that belonged to Selznick’s late mentor. In the middle of his performance, Selznick finds a threatening message in the sheet music, and is warned by his would-be killer Clem (Cusack) that one wrong note will result in a bullet through the head. All eyes are on the pianist as he gives the most important performance of his career – and tries to keep it from being his last. 

From the opening titles in which the inner workings of the titular instrument are shot as if they were components of a trap from the Saw movies, audiences will know what they’re in for. Grand Piano is a pulpy thriller that is earnestly Hitchcockian; composer Victor Reyes channelling Bernard Herrmann in his soundtrack. Produced by Rodrigo Cortés, it bears a similar ominously theatrical feel to Red Lights, which he directed. That aesthetic is certainly more overt here, the colour palette predominantly blood red. While it is a look that draws one in, there’s also a degree of artifice exacerbated by the rather out-there premise. 

The film does have a pretty neat logline – “Speed with a grand piano”.  There are also shades of Phone Booth (Box Seat?). It’s one of those things that’s either completely ridiculous or utterly brilliant and, intriguingly enough, director Eugenio Mira bounces the movie between those two extremes with marvellous precision. Yes, there are moments that strain suspension of disbelief and the dialogue is oftentimes quite awkward (the conductor tells his orchestra to “ready (their) weapons”, for instance). It is also expertly paced and effectively taut. In spite of the smatterings of Grand Guignol bombast, there’s a credible sense of danger established and we feel trapped alongside Selznick, caught in the crosshairs and still having to focus on his craft. 

Elijah Wood has picked some quirky films over the last few years and his refusal to be pigeonholed after starring in a successful blockbuster franchise is admirable. Wood makes for an adequately convincing master pianist, his perpetual youthfulness upping the “child prodigy fallen from grace” quotient. Working with coach and hand double Héctor Eliel Márquez, Wood does actually look like he’s playing, and does actually look like he’s good. We wish that the trailer (and the poster) didn’t give away that John Cusack was the villain as it would’ve been a nice surprise reveal. He spends most of the film off screen, present in the form of a menacing voice in Selznick’s ear. While this is yet another case in which the revelation of the antagonist’s motive is at least a bit of a let-down, Cusack is still solid opposition to our heroic pianist. Shout-out to Alex Winter of Bill and Ted fame who shows up as a suspicious theatre usher. Excellent, dude! 

Grand Piano is an entertaining affair that isn’t afraid to dip into silliness and thanks to some assured direction, isn’t overcome by its preposterous premise, instead gamely running with it. While far from wholly satisfying, it’s a slickly-crafted, well-acted suspense thriller packed with pizzazz and flourish, Lang Lang-style. 

SUMMARY: Elijah Wood goes pedal to the metal in a slightly different way than Sandra Bullock did in this occasionally silly but consistently exhilarating flick.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars 

Jedd Jong 

Non-Stop

F*** Magazine

NON-STOP

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Nate Parker, Anson Mount, Michelle Dockery, Corey Stoll, Linus Roache, Omar Metwally, Lupita Nyong’o, Jason Butler Harner
Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller
Run Time: 106 mins
Opens: 27 February 2014
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Violence)

Perhaps there should be a subgenre of action/thrillers called “Badass on a Plane”. In Non-Stop, Liam Neeson joins the ranks of Wesley Snipes, Kurt Russell, Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and Jodie Foster as a man on a mission stuck in one of those scary metal tubes 40 000 feet in the air. Neeson plays U.S. Federal Air Marshal Bill Marks, who boards a non-stop flight from New York to London on duty. He receives a series of ominous text messages from an unknown sender aboard the plane, threatening to kill one passenger every 20 minutes until a sum of $150 million is paid. With the help of Jen (Moore), the woman in the next seat and Nancy (Dockery), the head flight attendant, Bill must apprehend the perpetrator. Anyone could be a suspect, including fellow air marshal Jack Hammond (Mount), schoolteacher Tom Bowen (McNairy) and NYPD cop Austin Reilly (Stoll).

Non-Stop reteams Neeson with Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed him in Unknown. Non-Stop continues Neeson’s second wind as a tough action hero, though it is a suspense thriller rather than a straight-up action flick. In Unknown, Collet-Serra created a stylish atmosphere and a genuinely intriguing mystery that crumbled more than a little by the time it reached its conclusion, and Non-Stop is similar in those regards. While Non-Stop’s twist ending isn’t as crazy as the one in Unknown, audiences will still find themselves trying to thread together the narrative loopholes afterwards.


Collet-Serra is great at setting moods. Here we have a whodunit on a commercial airliner and Non-Stop plays on many of the fears a good number of travellers face every time they board a plane. There are several clever visual touches, like a moment in which Bill is surrounded by floating graphical representations of the text messages he is receiving, almost like they are closing in on him. There are also some cool camera moves: in one scene, the camera sweeps laterally down the aisle of the plane, then zooms outwards, crosses the exterior of the fuselage, and zooms back in to the rear of the cabin. The screenplay by John W. Richardson, Chris Roach and Ryan Engle is taut if far from watertight, effectively ratcheting up the tension.

Liam Neeson plays the same gruff, grizzled do-gooder archetype he’s been playing a lot in his later career, meaning he doesn’t get to show off his range but he is what the fans what to see him as – a badass. The Bill Marks character isn’t given a lot of depth, and is established upfront as a troubled alcoholic and smoker prone to violent outbursts. There are times in the film when the characterisation of Bill crosses over from “flawed” to “possibly at least a little incompetent” and he does get critically outsmarted by the mystery villain. But should one choose to say “here’s a tough guy on an airplane and I don’t really need to know more about him”, Non-Stop can be enjoyed. Neeson is unflinchingly serious, and don’t call him Shirley.

Non-Stop also reunites Neeson with his Chloe co-star Julianne Moore, who is a friendly, helpful and comforting presence that we as an audience are still supposed to question. It’s not the best use of her talent ever but we’re not complaining. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery is believable as an attentive, cool-headed flight attendant but it is a pity that Lupita Nyong’o, the breakout star of 12 Years a Slave, gets very little to do here. We have a veritable fish market of red herrings and the actors playing the passengers are generally decent, House of Cards’ Corey Stoll particularly arresting.

A theme that unexpectedly crops up in Non-Stop is that of the role that mass media plays in unfolding crises and an instance in which sensationalist news coverage is satirised is pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the film falls back on clichés and stereotypes, bending over backwards to be politically correct in its portrayal of Islamic character Dr. Fahim Nasir (Metwally). There’s also the obligatory “motive rant” speech, in which the culprit lays out the rationale behind the evil plot which makes less sense the more one thinks about it. On the whole, Non-Stop is a fairly entertaining and thrilling diversion and even though the pay-off is not altogether satisfying, Non-Stop is sufficiently absorbing in the moment and this reviewer did get invested in the mystery. It’s one of those “don’t think too hard about how it all fits together” movies, but it emerges above average thanks to the stylish direction and its dependable leading man.

Summary: The title isn’t the only thing silly about Non-Stop, but there’s an adequate “grip the armrests” quotient and is unlikely to wholly disappoint Liam Neeson fans even though it doesn’t quite soar.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Counsellor

For F*** Magazine

THE COUNSELLOR

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast:    Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Natalie Dormer, Rosie Perez, Richard Cabral, Sam Spruell
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Run Time: 118 mins
Opens: 28 November 2013
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene, Violence and Coarse Language)

Why do people swim with sharks? After all, sharks have a long-standing reputation as fearsome creatures, nature’s perfect predator, and the self-preservation instinct in all of us dictates that we stay as far away from them as possible. Perhaps some have nerves of steel, others wish to face their fears; some are drawn to the allure of living on the edge, others convinced that the circumstances are controlled and safe and that sharks are largely misunderstood.



Here, our “swimmer” is the Counsellor of the title (Fassbender), otherwise unnamed. He seems to have everything: he’s handsome, wears lots of Armani and is very much in love with his girlfriend Laura (Cruz). He has, however, run into money troubles and decides to enter into an illicit drug deal with eccentric kingpin Reiner (Bardem). Within Reiner’s circle are his vampy love Malkina (Diaz) and middleman Westray (Pitt). The Counsellor is also the court-appointed lawyer to convict Ruth (Perez), mother of a high-ranking cartel figure (Cabral). Of course, things go awry, as things must, the Counsellor’s existence crumbling apart as the days go by, all he holds dear at stake.



The Counsellor is directed by Ridley Scott, from a script by nigh-legendary novelist Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men, The Road, All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian. The Counsellor is the veteran writer’s first screenplay, and what an unfortunate clunker this is. The dialogue consists almost exclusively of endless strings of platitudes, opaque threats and nauseating anecdotes of violence and sex. Cringe-worthy, faux-portentous lines like “I think the truth has no temperature” crop up repeatedly. The shootouts and a car chase seem like very perfunctory insertions, as if they’re there only to fulfil some unwritten requirement about a thriller film involving the drug trade.



Yes, Ridley Scott has earned his reputation as a well-regarded director and does stage some shocking moments of graphic violence fairly effectively. There’s a bit with a motorcycle and a trip wire, and a scene involving the deployment of a “bolito”, a nasty motorised garrotte. The problem is, the material isn’t very cinematic and it seems even he finds it hard to make two people talking to each other look interesting or dynamic.



In addition to the pedigree behind the camera, the film’s mostly solid cast also contributes to how ultimately disappointing it is. Seeing all those names on the poster should whet the appetite and admittedly, these actors aren’t bad. Michael Fassbender’s Counsellor seems to be caught in a moral dilemma and he does have some moments of gut-wrenching emotion – but we barely get to know the character at all and he’s a somewhat smug guy whose troubles are of his own making, making it difficult to sympathise with him in spite of Fassbender’s best efforts. He was a lot more interesting as the android David in Scott’s previous film Prometheus.



Real-life husband and wife Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz are in this, though they do not share the screen together. Both are alumni of Cormac McCarthy film adaptations; Bardem having starred in No Country For Old Men and Cruz in All the Pretty Horses. Bardem appears to be having fun with the role, flamboyant and equal parts affable and shady and carrying hints of his Bond villain Silva from last year’s Skyfall. Cruz’s Laura is very much “the girlfriend”, doing nothing actually of note through the whole film beyond a roll in the hay with the Counsellor and some poolside flirting with Malkina. Brad Pitt in his supporting role will make moviegoers go “oh hey, it’s Brad Pitt in a supporting role” and that’s about it.



Of course, there’s one performer who absolutely pulls the whole thing down with her every time she’s on screen: Cameron Diaz. The name conjures up images of ditzy blonde characters clapping their hands and squealing in delight. She is far from the first person who comes to mind when one thinks “femme fatale”, and she amply demonstrates how inept she is with stilted line delivery and laughable posturing. In fact, she attempted to affect a Barbadian accent, but test audiences found it so distracting that she was forced to re-dub all her dialogue in post-production. Angelina Jolie was attached to the role for a time and there’s no question that she would have been a better fit. Looking at Malkina’s character poster, it seems the poster designer’s brief was “make Cameron Diaz look as much like Angelina Jolie as possible.” We can tell the difference, we really can. Even looking past Diaz’s performance, the character is written as a man-eating, wicked wildcat, followed everywhere by two pet cheetahs and sporting a cheetah tattoo. It’s a caricature that beggars belief.



The Counsellor comes off as one of those films that imagines itself to be far cleverer than it actually is, appearing daring and edgy but ultimately hollow, unpalatable and unsatisfying. Its top-tier cast are given pages of drivel to spout; a pity since Cormac McCarthy’s first screenplay was an eagerly-anticipated work. More alienating and off-putting than thrilling and absorbing, The Counsellor flounders even under Scott’s direction and will leave audiences drowning in a miasma of highfalutin excess.

SUMMARY: The Counsellor lays down the law, crushing its illustrious cast, prolific writer and celebrated director flat.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Captain Phillips

For F*** Magazine

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

Director: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali, Michael Chernus, David Worshofsky, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey, Catherine Keener, Max Martini, Omar Berdouni
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Run Time: 134 mins
Opens: 14 November 2013
Rating: PG (Some Violence)

Forrest ain’t no shrimpin’ boat captain no more.

In this film based on the book A Captain’s Duty, a memoir written by the Richard Phillips of the title with Stephan Talty, Tom Hanks as Phillips is in charge of a much larger vessel than the Jenny – the MV Maersk Alabama. What was to be a routine voyage from Oman to Mombasa for the freighter turns extremely dangerous, the area living up to its notorious reputation as a hotbed for piracy. A crew of pirates from Eyl, Somalia led by Muse (Abdi) hijacks the Alabama in search of a payday. Captain Phillips, his first mate Shane Murphy (Chernus) and the rest of the crew have to avoid death at the hands of the pirates. The marauders eventually kidnap Captain Phillips, holding him hostage aboard a lifeboat as a Navy SEAL rescue mission is put in motion. Frightened for his life and trapped in a confined space, Captain Phillips has to tough it out as a full-blown crisis quickly unravels around him.

Director Paul Greengrass, who comes from a documentary filmmaking background, has become known for films that put the audience right in the thick of it with cinéma vérité-style handheld camera work, tight closeups and grain and noise-filled nighttime scenes. You can almost smell the seawater, feel the heat of the engine room and might emerge feeling a wee bit seasick. This is absolutely the right approach for Captain Phillips, Greengrass’ hand in the proceedings ensuring that this feels authentic and visceral as opposed to glossy and embellished. It’s a “based on a true story” type deal that unfolds in a way that does seem very close to how the actual events might have went, though nobody except those directly involved can say for certain. 

The film has attracted a degree of controversy in the form of some sailors aboard the Maersk Alabama filing suit against the Maersk Line and the Watership Steam Corp, claiming that Captain Phillips was not the hero the film made him out to be and that the hijacking was caused in part by his negligence and arrogance. Director Greengrass has defended the depiction of Captain Phillips in the film, having done the research and making judgement calls in his direction, saying he stands by the movie’s version of events “100%”. At the end of the day, the story has been told in a gripping, engaging manner and for those who appreciate Greengrass’ other films based on true events, Bloody Sunday and United 93, this is a must-watch.

Tom Hanks is an actor who has been much-celebrated over the course of his career and who has become a much-beloved figure in the movie biz. He has attracted well-deserved Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Richard Phillips; if there’s anyone who can do the “everyman thrust into a life or death situation” thing, it is Tom Hanks. He isn’t an actor who jumps around onscreen, waving his hands and proclaiming “look at me, I’m a movie star” – this could well have been the case were it a different actor in the captain’s chair. Hanks’ Captain Phillips works hard at containing his fear and is calm and even in his interactions with his captors; Hanks’ layered performance working all these emotions in. There’s a particularly shocking moment during the movies denouement that Hanks plays extremely well. 

Aside from Catherine Keener, who has a brief appearance as Phillips’ wife Andrea, the cast is bereft of “name actors”, which definitely keeps the movie from getting distracting as an overly familiar face in a supporting role might well pull one out from the moment. Wiry-framed Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdi who plays the leader of the pirates is intense, intimidating and naturalistic in his portrayal. He totally holds his own against Tom Hanks; Hanks has said he was “truly petrified” acting opposite Abdi and the other actors who played the pirates. The film is commendable in giving them just enough backstory for the audience to grasp their motivations, instead of portraying them as cackling movie monsters.

The film does take a while to get into gear, it’s probably a good 40 minutes before the pirates board the Alabama. That said, Greengrass’ pacing is impeccable, the events taking on a true unpredictability in spite of the procedure and protocol of the rescue mission shown. It certainly doesn’t feel like a vainglorious military propaganda piece the way something like Act of Valor was. The focus stays square on the title character even when SEALs and military figures enter the fray. It may seem like a cliché, but this is one of those movies simply about men and women going about their jobs - it’s just that said jobs can take on stakes far higher than most of us can imagine. 

Henry Jackman’s soundtrack can be pretty generic at times and there at moments when the computer-generated imagery used to create long shots of the ships is a wee bit conspicuous, but this does very little to take away from the genuine tension that fuels the film. It’s no mean feat to make an audience feel stuck in a harrowing situation alongside the protagonist – that’s exactly what Greengrass, Hanks, screenwriter Billy Ray and crew have done with Captain Phillips.

SUMMARY: It’s nail-biting suspense on the high seas as director Paul Greengrass and star Tom Hanks bring a “ripped from the headlines” story to riveting, involving life.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Prisoners

For F*** Magazine

PRISONERS

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Run Time: 152 mins
Opens: 19 September 2013
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language)

We’ve seen many examples of the “Papa Wolf” archetype in cinema over the years, a character who transforms into an unstoppable force of nature after his child is hurt, kidnapped or otherwise threatened, making the offenders wish they’d never crossed him. In films such as Ransom, John Q, the recent Snitch and of course Taken, fathers have leapt into the fire in the name of ensuring the well-being of their kids. Hugh Jackman now joins the ranks in this mystery thriller.

Jackman plays Keller Dover, a carpenter and repairman in the small town of Conyers, Pennsylvania. On Thanksgiving, Keller, his wife Grace (Bello), son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) and daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) go over the house of Franklin Birch (Howard) and family for dinner. Afterwards, they discover that Anna, along with Franklin’s daughter Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) is missing. Police detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) leads the investigation; a mentally handicapped young man named Alex Jones (Dano), cared for by his aunt Holly (Leo), seemingly involved. Keller is convinced of Alex’s guilt and takes matters into his own hands, repeatedly clashing with Loki as the days tick past with no sign of Anna or Joy in sight.



If the synopsis makes Prisoners sound like Taken but with Hugh Jackman, be informed that it really isn’t. While Taken was a straight-up action flick with Liam Neeson blasting a path of vengeance through Paris as the audience cheers him on, Prisoners is a thriller of the “glued to your seat with shivers down your spine” variety. The film marks the English-language debut of Québécoise director Denis Villeneuve, whose film Incendies was a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar contender. Prisoners is a tightly directed piece, a sense of foreboding established early on.



The film plays out in a realistic small town setting; bleak, dreary and constantly raining. Multiple Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins of The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, True Grit (2010) and Skyfall fame, delivers some nail-biting moments with nothing more than a slow push-in. The eerie, cello-driven score by Jóhann Jóhannsson endeavours to redefine the word “ominous” and is very effective, if heavy-handed and obvious at times.



Hugh Jackman has established himself as one of the best-liked leading men in Hollywood over the past decade, and it’s easy to see why: he can dance, sing, do comedy, do drama, do action and is very personable in interviews. In Prisoners, we truly get a chance to see a side of the actor we haven’t before. As a father driven to the brink, he is remarkably believable. Keller lashes out, gets mad and does some pretty unpleasant things, but Jackman’s conviction ensures the audience is always rooting for him even as he trudges past moral boundaries and we question his methods. He also never flies into histrionics or goes laughably over the top; the flashes of raw fury behind his eyes conveying a primal anger even Wolverine might respect.



He’s backed up by a supporting cast that’s very strong by any standards; for what might be seen as a smaller movie, it sure has roped in some top-drawer talent. Jake Gyllenhaal previously investigated child kidnappings as real-life true crime author Robert Graysmith in Zodiac. His character here is less obsessive and not so much consumed by his job as dutifully going about it. Detective Loki, possibly snicker-inducing name notwithstanding, is a character we want to see succeed as much as we want to see Keller find his daughter.



Paul Dano is very good as Alex and is an actor who deserves to hit the big time very soon. Is he just feigning a disability and is really the devious mastermind, or is he a victim himself? Dano plays it such that we’re not so sure one way or the other. Melissa Leo at her suburban grandmother-iest also ensures we’re never quite certain if Keller should be trusting her. David Dastmalchian is fantastically creepy as the other prime suspect, while Viola Davis and Maria Bello both make for convincingly distraught mothers. If there’s a weak link, it might be Terrence Howard, who struggles to match up to Jackman’s skill level. Dylan Minnette and Zoe Borde as the older kids of the Dover and Birch households also deliver rather stilted performances.



However, this far from cripples this absorbing film that manages to be feverishly suspenseful without being emotionally manipulative. There are several “plants and payoffs” that might be too blatant to some viewers; points of plot which are laid down in full view so they can be picked up on again later. The masterful construction of the piece isn’t undermined and from its haunting atmospherics to its powerhouse lead performances, Prisoners is the kind of film that doesn’t loosen its grip for a second.

SUMMARY: Its premise may sound straight out of any number of police procedural TV shows, but tight direction and a firing-on-all-cylinders turn from Hugh Jackman ensure that this will be lurking around the corners of your mind for a fair bit after leaving the theatre.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Argo

As published in Issue #34 of F*** Magazine, Singapore

ARGO

Director: Ben Affleck
Cast:  Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Run Time: 120 mins
Opens: 13 November 2012
Rating: PG13 – Coarse Language

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently released his autobiography, entitled ‘Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story’. Well Arnie, it seems you have some serious competition in that department; because Argo is as unbelievable as true stories come. Ben Affleck’s historical political thriller recounts the U.S.-Canadian joint covert rescue operation nicknamed ‘The Canadian Caper’, drawing on declassified documents and personal accounts, laying it all out in incredible fashion.

It is 1979, and Iranian militants have stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. Six others manage to escape and seek refuge at the residence of the kindly Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber). The CIA calls upon exfiltration and disguise expert Tony Mendez (Affleck), working with his boss Jack O’Donnell (Cranston) to devise a plan to rescue the six consulate workers. When his son watches Battle for the Planet of the Apes on TV, Mendez is inspired and hatches a crazy plan: he will enter Iran under the pretence of doing location scouting for a science-fiction fantasy film. With the help of Oscar-winning make-up artist John Chambers (Goodman) and Hollywood film producer Lester Siegel (Arkin), Mendez concocts the sham-movie Argo, and thus begins the harrowing mission to smuggle the six Americans out of Iran, having them pose as a Canadian film crew.



Producers George Clooney, David Klawans and Grant Heslov read an article in Wired magazine about the ‘Canadian Caper’ and thought it would make for a great movie. Guess what: they were absolutely right. Ben Affleck delivers a crackling thriller which hits all the right notes: it feels thoroughly authentic with meticulous details ensuring the audience is convinced of the '70s period setting; it’s taut and exciting with the very high stakes feeling very real and it’s leavened with a good helping of humour revolving around the fickle Hollywood machine.

When the trailer was released, some concerns arose that the tone of the film would be uneven, lurching from serious political drama to light-hearted movie business satire. Well, you can rest assured that director Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio have managed to weave both elements of the story together and very cleverly presented an interesting juxtaposition. In the film and, presumably, in real life too, nobody seemed convinced for a second that the idea would work, and just as Mendez had to sell the CIA on it, so Affleck has to sell the idea to the film-going public – and that, he does. Goodman and Arkin are welcome presences, their affability providing much-needed respite from the intense goings-on in Iran. Hollywood is presented as a place where nothing is meant to be taken seriously, vis-à-vis Washington D.C. and Langley Virginia, where everything is meant to be taken seriously, and we get to see just how much trouble Tony Mendez had to go to in order to assemble ‘The Hollywood Option’, and in how short an amount of time he had as well.



Ben Affleck seems to have regained all the credibility he lost following the likes of Gigli and Daredevil with his directing stints in recent years, and this film most definitely continues that winning streak. He presides over the picture with a sure hand, expertly ratcheting up the tension (though he sometimes appears overly dependent on 360 degree camera moves) and giving the film something of a retro feel (notice the old-school Warner Bros. logo at the beginning) without going overboard. The climactic airport tarmac pursuit is a bona fide edge-of-your-seat moment. He’s not too shabby in front of the camera either, putting in a low-key performance while conveying the quiet valour and determination of the Mendez character very well.

During the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, there were some murmurs from the Canadian crowd that the film unfairly overlooked the involvement of the Canadian government in the rescue operation – it’s called the ‘Canadian Caper’ after all. Ben Affleck agreed to augment the postscript text, noting that the CIA’s actions were performed in conjunction with Canadian intelligence. This reviewer can’t vouch for the veracity of the film’s portrayal of historical events, but he can say this: it really doesn’t feel like your average overly-embellished ‘loosely based on a true story’ Hollywood deal, and that’s something to be admired. Argo is an expertly-crafted tribute to the power of ingenuity, bravery and co-operation (cheesy though that may sound) and makes for engrossing, compelling and powerful entertainment.

SUMMARY: Ben Affleck has a monumental success on his hands with this intriguing, exciting and smart historical political thriller. Go see Argo now!

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong