We saw the film Argo yesterday.
We thought the film was good, but I don’t think Ben Affleck needs to clear any room on his shelf for Oscars.
Part of the problem is, if you saw the trailers and know even a tad bit about history, you know exactly what happens in this film. Now granted, just knowing how a film ends is not a deal breaker - I think most people knew the Titanic was not going to be a film about a happy pleasure cruise - and that film scooped up plenty of Oscars.
In Argo, the story kind of fell flat - there really were no great surprises, no real sense of urgent “will they or won’t they” escape, and the “action” scenes were mostly crowds of protestors burning American flags in the streets of Tehran.
The set up was kind of cool - the Hollywood back story was the most fun. But the actual scenes of the six hostages in the Canadian Embassy in Iran were surprisingly boring. You barely got to know the six people, which means you really were not all that invested in their release. To be honest, they mostly came across as very annoying house guests rather than desperate hostages.
Their actual escape had a few moments of mild excitement and thrills - but once again, even this was subdued by the fact that you knew it ended well.
If I had been the script reader, I would have pushed for more of the fun Hollywood story, and then have them at least flesh out the stories of the six hostages a bit better so you gave a damn if they lived or died. The acting was decent, but Ben Affleck played dour throughout, and as director/star and producer, he was pretty much in every scene.
So the film was good - it accomplished what it meant to accomplish - but it just missed any great insight, or twist, or great action adventure. As an audience member, you will get what you paid for and what you probably expected from the story - but sadly, nothing more.
