'Argo' (2012)

[danielvin]

I found the movie to be pretty mediocre. I won't remember anything when I wake up tomorrow. It's pretty forgettable and empty.

[Ali D]

Let me be harsh on this. Argo was a joke! It's Not Without My Daughter only with a bigger cast. Horrendous and laughable at many many points. Especially the last 30 minutes were horrible horrible. Even a student can create better mis-en-scenes to create tension. With showing what everything happened with crosscuttings the film demands us to believe all of that happened in that order, with the exact coincidences. The film insists "everything is real". Look at the credits, look at the Persepolis-like prologue. If you want me to "believe" everything happened like this, than i must be living in a different world. I don't even want to talk about orientalism in this. It was like a zombi film, they were like trying to escape from a Zombieland. How Iranians are represented here are really the most disturbing thing Hollywood made after Not Without My Daughter. The revolutionary guard in the end, how the guards look at storyboards and have fun, car won't work cliche, creating a tense last minute conflict with alcohol service allowance. Come the fuck on Affleck, come the fuck on! Really!!!

Plane ticket? I think they had faster internet connection in the 80s. Only thing CIA does to buy the tickets? Come the fuck on. I really wanna ask to the filmmakser: Are you kiddin me?

[danielvin]

I pretty much agree with you Ali!

[kitkat]

I liked this as a solid piece of entertainment but I did feel like the contrast between the history lessons and the very obvious parts where they tried to make it more exciting than it really was worked against it and took me out of the film. But I'd be lying if I said I was bored or uninterested at any point in the movie.

[TheBoss]

I was never bored watching this movie. I thought it was great storytelling.

[Mamma Roma]

I thought the editing in the end of the film was excellent, but I did sense what Ali D is saying abut the portrayal of Iranians. It did come off as patronizing when the guards are pointing at drawings and making sci-fi effect noises.

As for Ben Affleck, I thought he gave a pretty good performance as Tony Mendez. I really felt his drive to help the 6 hostages. At times though, the 6 hostages came off as rather dry academic types stuck in a house with all the food, cigarettes and wine they could want. I didn't truly feel anything for them until towards the end, which I think was more the intensity of the direction as opposed to their characters.

[Scarmi]

I finally saw this. I wasn't expecting it to be a great film or anything, but..it's so disappointing! Every time there's an opportunity for something interesting to happen, it does something boring instead. It's sort of well-made, but as a whole it's so boring I kind of wanted to leave.

[McTeague]

So, THIS is winning screenplay awards? Excuse me? Has there ever been a more painted-by-the-numbers, formula screenplay? It seems like a group of students did it for their screenwriting class end-of-term assignment. One student was in charge of the “character development” part and so he added that tacked-on scene with Affleck and Arkin talking about their children being with their mothers. He also didn’t forget to add a last minute call and a letter to Afflek’s son before the mission really starts, just like the teacher taught them, that the audience needs to know something about them to care for them. Another student was commissioned to check that the tension never flickers, so he, an apt student he is, noticed the group’s entrance at the airport was kind of anti-climatic with no peril involved at that early stage, so he used the famous device known as “a gun in the drawer”, by which, before a scene that could drag, a character hides a gun inside a drawer and now the scene is filled with tension. Here it’s the “Oh noes, the flight tickets haven’t been approved, but they will by in the last minute!” moment. Another student was in charge of adding some comedic relief, a detached irony and wit that makes this feel more modern. Being a huge fan of the God Aaron Sorkin, he peppered the whole thing with witticisms.

And voilá, the students passed the term, and with good marks! They just did everything in the screenwriting handbook. Congratulations! A good mark may not be enough, so please, by all means, let’s give them also critics awards and an Oscar nomination, because really, it was a long time since we last saw a screenplay adhering so impressively to the handbook.

It is mind-numbing that this lifeless script is receiving so much praise. In the old Hollywood days, the studios produced like, 20 scripts like this one per year. They were directed with exactly the same (or more) efficiency by the likes of Henry Hathaway, Lewis Milestone, Sam Wood, Michael Curtiz, W. S. Van Dyke, Mervin LeRoy… And nobody considered them Oscar material, let alone critics’ wins material. They’re not even considered minor classics nowadays, but just solid but impersonal movies.

And that’s what this movie is, mainly because that’s what its screenplay is: solid, effective formula. The only colourful part of it is the banter and relation between Arkin and Goodman, but I think they, as actors, deserve more credit for the chemistry they create than Chris Terrio for writing their dialogue. Yes, the dialogue is funny, but the sense of long-time knowledge of each other comes from Arkin and Goodman. Now, I don’t think what Arkin did, alone, is worthy of the accolades he’s receiving, but if it was some sort of special joint award to both him and Goodman for their chemistry, I’d be all for it.

And Affleck is very good too? It’s maybe his own limitations as an actor what works incredibly well for the role (someone who is and looks forgettable and anodyne, but is committed to his job), but yeah, everything about his screen persona fits this role and grounds the movie.

So, I don’t want to imply this is a bad movie by any means. It’s incredibly formulaic and unoriginal but it still works very well. Just like a McDonalds hamburger is effective for satiating your hunger and it even tastes very well. It’s only that we don’t even consider McDonalds hamburgers for culinary awards, so it’s baffling that this has more 100s than most movies this year in Metacritic and is such a shoe-in for all end-of-year awards. I don’t know if it says more about the state of Hollywood (a movie Hollywood used to produce at a 30-per-year ratio is nowadays an event) or about the state of American film criticism (if a literary critic gave the literary equivalent of this film, say, a John Grisham novel, his highest mark, he wouldn’t be allowed in critics associations!), but it’s sad anyways. If this ended up winning the Oscar, it would be the most generic, puzzling win ever. Say what you will about Slumdog or The Artist, but at least they were unusual films that felt driven by someone with some illusion and faith in his creature, bot the most generic kind of film. Even much worse films like Crash felt more alive and breathing than this.

As for Affleck the director, he’s efficient and gives some of the life the script is sorely lacking with a strong sense of time and place, and a lively way to communicate the tension and dilemmas the characters face (all the scenes where he ponders what to do when he knows his mission has been cancelled, and he decides to go with it anyways, are great), but it’s nothing awards-worthy either. And the much-praised editing is also merely functional and absolutely dictated by the script.

[RRA]

So I take it you didn't like this as much as LES MISERABLES.

[McTeague]

I have not seen Les Miserables yet.

But any bad movie has an easy way to have more blood in its veins than Argo. I loathe Haggis' Crash, but there you have a film that sprang from a place inside a human mind and not from a machine.

[RRA]

I have not seen Les Miserables yet.

But any bad movie has an easy way to have more blood in its veins than Argo. I loathe Haggis' Crash, but there you have a film that sprang from a place inside a human mind and not from a machine.

Ah yes CRASH, where falling on your ass cures your racism.

I'm surprised you didn't use FOREST GUMP instead.

[McTeague]

When thinking about it, yes, FG, Braveheart and Gladiator are the closest examples to something as generic as Argo winning, but still, each of them had something more unique than Argo. Braveheart brought the medieval epic back updating it with more realistic violence and a genuine (if questionable) sense of national pride. Gladiator did the same for the sword-and-sandal epic, but also added Scott’s baroque approach that turned imperial Rome into a truly decadent place. And FG had an original way of showing a country’s history, and was all innovative at least in the visual effects department, and hell, it was an odd story. Argo has, literally, nothing at all that is original, new or unique. It’s even more generic than those examples. I can’t find a BP winner that’s so utterly generic. I can only think of one recent BP nominee that was as impersonal: “A Few Good Men”.

[Eduardo Zuckerberg]

^The Blind Side.

[RRA]

When thinking about it, yes, FG, Braveheart and Gladiator are the closest examples to something as generic as Argo winning, but still, each of them had something more unique than Argo. Braveheart brought the medieval epic back updating it with more realistic violence and a genuine (if questionable) sense of national pride. Gladiator did the same for the sword-and-sandal epic, but also added Scott’s baroque approach that turned imperial Rome into a truly decadent place. And FG had an original way of showing a country’s history, and was all innovative at least in the visual effects department, and hell, it was an odd story. Argo has, literally, nothing at all that is original, new or unique. It’s even more generic than those examples. I can’t find a BP winner that’s so utterly generic. I can only think of one recent BP nominee that was as impersonal: “A Few Good Men”.

GLADIATOR doesn't deserve to be lumped in with those two. (and yes, better than ARGO. I'll give you that.) With GLADIATOR, there are different reasons to watch it. Phoenix has good fun work as the villain, in the same way Tom Hiddleston is doing for comic book fans these days: He is definately the bad guy, but his motivations are more from a lack of perceived respect, and that shit just boils over. The gladiator fights are still exciting (and violent). The production design is expensive and rich.

It's pretty good popcorn, and that's not a putdown at all. I'm glad this won instead of fucking TRAFFIC.

[McTeague]

I'd say Argo is a better movie than Gladiator. I felt almost nothing with Gladiator, whereas I was tense, amused and ultimately moved by Argo's entire running time. But still, Gladiator is a more unique, memorable film, thanks to the imagery, thanks to being the last decent sword-and-sandal epic, thanks to updating that genre for modern audiences... It has unique things. Argo is much better rounded and executed but sorely lacks a personality.

[RRA]

I'd say Argo is a better movie than Gladiator. I felt almost nothing with Gladiator, whereas I was tense, amused and ultimately moved by Argo's entire running time. But still, Gladiator is a more unique, memorable film, thanks to the imagery, thanks to being the last decent sword-and-sandal epic, thanks to updating that genre for modern audiences... It has unique things. Argo is much better rounded and executed but sorely lacks a personality.

You're confusing me. You're outraged by this movie's blandness, yet you were still engaged by it? I mean I don't like bland movies either too, because...they're bland, they don't engage or entertain me. They tend to run through me like berries do for a goose.

Would you be as upset if this wasn't a perceived serious Oscar contender? If it was just a popcorn movie released and nothing more? And really that is as far as I regard ARGO.

[McTeague]

You're confusing me. You're outraged by this movie's blandness, yet you were still engaged by it? I mean I don't like bland movies either too, because...they're bland, they don't engage or entertain me.

Would you be as upset if this wasn't a perceived serious Oscar contender? If it was just a popcorn movie released and nothing more? And really that is as far as I regard ARGO.

Hm. I made a whole paragraph making it clear that yes, what bothers me the most is the critics reaction to it (even moreso than what eventual vanilla awards like Oscars can give to it). I can’t fathom how anybody would give his/her highest grade, a 100, to this film, which is pure formula, to the last coma of its script. And yet, there are many critics who’ve done so.

I’m not sure I’ve used the word “bland” for Argo. If I did, I misused it, because everywhere else I’ve mainly described it as “solid”, which would be the opposite. What it lacks is not tension or emotion. It also doesn’t lack craft. It lacks… well, everything else art is about: inspiration, humanity, personality… Everything that separates the generic from the memorable.

[haqyunus]

I couldn't agree more. It was bland and formulaic to the boot. My initial reaction (except the opening maybe which gives you false hope) it was disappointingly boring. When I first saw it and posted here, I thought that I was judging it prematurely but with the passage of time, my opinion about it in fact has worsened (the Goodman/Arkin part is just pure cheese) Ebert picked this at his best movie 2012!!! As for awards McTeague, I don't want to be annoying or flog a dead horse but when The Blind Side could, then anything can, so I don't thing that should surprise you anymore.

[RRA]

Hm. I made a whole paragraph making it clear that yes, what bothers me the most is the critics reaction to it (even moreso than what eventual vanilla awards like Oscars can give to it). I can’t fathom how anybody would give his/her highest grade, a 100, to this film, which is pure formula, to the last coma of its script. And yet, there are many critics who’ve done so.

I don't know. Why do people hate movies you or any of us adore? Why did DANCES WITH WOLVES beat GOODFELLAS? Beats me.

well, everything else art is about: inspiration, humanity, personality… Everything that separates the generic from the memorable.

Sounds like a purely subjective if said movie doesn't reach out to you on some higher level. Which is fine (and to a degree, I might even agree with you on ARGO), but movies only "work" on the level you demand if people respond to it from their own end.

The one inspired touch in ARGO (using your criteria) I really liked was the ending shot, which in context and where it was placed, I found fitting and thoughtful.

[McTeague]

Sounds like a purely subjective if said movie doesn't reach out to you on some higher level.

Well, yes and no. Ultimately, everything is subjective, but I think my criticism of the screenplay, which is what I said makes the whole movie lifeless for me, is fairly objective. Every element of the structure is something out of a screenwriting handbook/class: the required but tacked-on scene to give us information about the protagonist's family background so that we care more for him, the required last-minute added tension for scenes that would normally not have any tension (the flight tickets not being approved right when they arrive at the airport), the character who doesn't trust the mission and the character who does... Everything in the script is SUCH a common-place thing they teach you in screenwriting class! A machine could have written it.