Hatchet reporter Margaret Kahn shares her latest movie experience.

“Argo” (2012)

Once in a while, a movie comes along that inexplicably makes audience members both reluctant to reenter the real world and inspired to contribute to it.

Based on recently declassified CIA documents, “Argo” reveals a previously unseen side to the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. The film tells the story of six diplomats who escape the U.S. embassy and find refuge in the residence of the Canadian ambassador. With only a few months to spend in the ambassador’s home, their options are running out.

Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), an exfiltration specialist who hatches a rescue plan so far-fetched it just might work. “There are only bad options,” he says to the unconvinced secretary of state. “It’s about finding the best one.” With reluctant government support, he allies himself with Hollywood big-shots John Chambers (John Goodman) and Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to create a fake science-fiction movie scouting for locations in Tehran. Aided by actors, a press release, studio support and costumes, Mendez flies into Iran promising the discouraged houseguests that he’s “never left anyone behind.”

Members of the Millennial Generation have watched Ben Affleck grow from Razzie-nominated star to an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director and actor whose undergraduate degree in Middle Eastern affairs is put to good use through his impeccable sets and casting.  In his role, Affleck remarkably captures the aura of a man whose job it is to remain unsuspecting and never take credit – a spirit contrary to the celebrity of Affleck’s world. And in portraying prominent film moguls, Goodman and Arkin brilliantly satirize their own professions.

In depicting a heroic and awe-inspiring spy force, “Argo” romanticizes the mission, often glossing over the operation’s less glamorous realities revealed in the original CIA documents. Stringent bureaucracy characterizes government agencies, a sentiment that is often swept under the rug in major scenes in order to illustrate a cast of good and bad guys.

Foreign affairs enthusiasts students will cheer on the film’s atypical heroes: members of the foreign public service sector. Still, regardless of one’s penchant for international relations, all should see this movie for a suspenseful and stimulating lesson in modern history and diplomacy. This gripping and tense thriller flies by quickly, and the harrowing events of the last chunk will keep your heart pounding.

Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Release Date: Oct. 12