Argo

Argo is Ben Affleck’s third directorial outing (following Gone Baby Gone and The Town) and reminded me of how much people still associate Ben Affleck with Daredevil and Armageddon instead of his last – and arguably much more sophisticated projects.

Still after the public exposure that Argo is getting this should be a thing of the past.

The Plot
Instead of retelling the story I will just direct you to the fantastic trailer the movie, it will sell the movie better than I ever could.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w918Eh3fij0]

So if you have watched the trailer or already know the plot here are a few more notes to further sell it. It is a story that sounds so ridiculous and over the top… it has to be made up?
Turns out it isn’t and at the end of the movie there are a lot of pictures from the real people that inspired this movie and the similarity is impressive.

The Town – again
It has been about 4 days since I saw the movie and when the credits rolled I had a very similar feeling of having watched a really superb movie… but still I was for some reason a tad underwhelmed.

Then again the movie does not really give me much to criticize. The worst thing I could say that it is a damn well made thriller that – without ever forgetting its genre – seamlessly blends human drama, suspense, historical events and comedy into a trip I think everyone should take.

At first it is much more humorous and it speaks to the quality of the filmmaking how quickly the movie changes moods. The final minutes had me go from very interested to on the edge of my seat. The last time I was this much into the thrills of a film must have been the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Then again that movie had constant suspense whereas Argo slowly builds and then just completely overwhelms you at the end.

And by the prose of these paragraphs you might see that I am not really disappointed. It has a lot to do with hype and incredible expectations. And I think the film will be very similar to The Town in the way that the more I thought about the movie the more I realized how special and nuanced it is. 2 years later and The Town has become one of my favorite gangster movies.

Well in this way Argo is new territory because I haven’t yet decided what my favorite historical-suspense-comedy is and I think the chances are pretty good that it will come out on top of this list.

If one puts aside rankings and Oscar-predictions Argo stands its ground and is a movie for almost everyone interested be it because of political, historical, acting or just entertainment reasons.

While I had hoped to be swept away even more by this movie this is an Oscar frontrunner unlike The Artist or The King’s Speech, it is a movie I will be rooting for to take home the gold as it is a far cry away from being typical Oscar-bait.