Argo

Let’s all just take a breath and a step back and actually look at Argo for a minute. Is it a bad movie? Not by a mile. In fact, it’s probably one of the better mainstream films to come out in 2012. But is it the awards-worthy juggernaut that it looks to become in the coming weeks? God, no! Nomination it for Best Picture all you want, but don’t give it the damn thing.

Argo is a perfectly fine movie, well made and efficiently acted, no one really stands out since most characters are just quick sketches and nothing more. It is very much of the tradition of heavily fabricated, loosely based on true events films that preceded it. It is pure middle-of-the-road, safe, warm, disposable entertainment that doesn’t reverberate or incite much worthy debate about its merits besides the fact that everyone seems to have gone totally screwy in Awards Land and handed it everything but the Oscar for Best Picture, which is probably being prematurely engraved as I write this.

Enough ranting for now, let’s get down to brass tax.

Argo is a traditional caper film that works so long as you don’t think too deeply about what is going on in the plot. The three act structure is practically sign-posted on its way to the conclusion which we all know is going to happen as soon as it begins. But it does a few things right on the way there.

Alan Arkin and John Goodman, given little to do but making the most of it, nail all of their laughs and make for a fine comedic duo. Sure, Arkin has been trading on this cantankerous, sarcastic old man routine for a while, and has used it to more heartfelt and surprising effect in Little Miss Sunshine, but he still nails his laughs. It’s not really award-winning work here, since there’s just a thin fragment of a character – loud, cranky, wise-ass elderly producer – but Arkin is a veteran who knows how to milk his lines for all they’re worth.

In fact, from top to bottom, the film is well acted, even if the only person with anything to do is Ben Affleck, who also produced, directed and co-wrote the screenplay. Various character actors get to display their skills, but they mostly left me wanting to spend more time with them and get to know them better. This isn’t to say that the man who got the hostages out isn’t a hero, or undeserving of a movie about him, but there’s so much of the true story that’s under-represented or utterly rewritten here that the lack of real personas in danger hurts the film.

And while the film is obviously rewritten to be more exciting than the actual story, several sequences call attention to themselves for being clear forgeries and boldfaced lies, Affleck does manage to sustain the tension and execute the moments well enough. Despite knowing how well it’s all going to end, there are times when Affleck allows for us to feel doubt about the certainty of the outcome.

But that’s about all I’ve got when it comes to effusive praise. The sequences which call obvious attention to them also factor into two other problems with the film: it’s got an ugly and irresponsible jingoistic streak and it represents all Iranian people are hellhounds sniffing and slobbering for blood.

While out in the bazaar disguising the Americans as Canadians in a scouting mission for a film, it devolves into a giant marauding mass ready to stain the ground with their blood. Except for one character, all Iranians we see are either permanently fixated in this mode, or quickly turn from human beings into unbalanced psycho killers. The juxtaposition of the noble white figures against the foreign and crazed brown-skinned Others is an ugly reminder of the simplified thinking that creates the us-versus-them mentality.

And the lone Iranian woman who isn’t presented this way isn’t given a voice, despite being important to the success or failure of the whole operation. This teeters away from outright racism into a more morally uncomfortable territory. We’re a stone’s throw away from Birth of a Nation-level ugliness here. This isn’t too downplay the realities of the time, yes, Iranians really did call for American blood. But this gross oversimplification of events isn’t the main problem. After all, Zero Dark Thirty took highly complicated events and distilled them down into more manageable moments. But Argo never bothers to leave any of its moments or issues as thorny, dark or complicated as Zero Dark Thirty. Argo prefers to have you leaving the theater screaming out “‘Merica, fuck yeah!”

A more artistically adventurous film could be made out of this material. One that doesn’t pander to base-level instincts and prefers to leave the edges jagged and frayed. This smooth, clean, glossy presentation is very safe and easy to digest. That’s probably why it keeps winning everything, because everyone leaves the theater thinking of only how they had been entertained and nothing more. There are no worrisome questions or images to stick with you, and in the end, everything is perfect and happy.