New Movie: Argo

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Oct 4th, 2012 in Drama, Featured Articles, Mystery, New Releases, Suspense | 0 comments

New Movie: Argo Directed by Ben Affleck

Argo is a new movie directed by Ben Affleck which is based on true accounts. Argo explores the covert operation to rescue six Americans. The story occurs on November 4th 1979 where an Iranian revolution reaches its peak and militants break into the U.S. embassy where they took hostage 52 Americans. Amidst this chaos there were 6 Americans who were able to escape and found refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Although they were able to escape, it is only a matter of time before they are found and killed. This is when Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), a CIA “exfiltration” specialist devices a risky plan to save and to get them out of the country safely. His plan is so outrageous that it can only happen in movies. Let’s take a look at an interview with director/actor of this upcoming movie: Argo

“An Interview With Ben Affleck On His Movie: Argo

In 1980, Studio Six Productions announced a new film project that had the elements of a hit sci-fi movie: spaceships, aliens, action and adventure, all happening on an arid, distant planet. Billed as a “cosmic conflagration,” the epic feature was never greenlit by any studio chief.

It could only be given a green light by the country’s Commander in Chief.

Many years later, Ben Affleck directed, produced and stars in “Argo,” a film based on the true story of the covert mission to rescue six Americans trapped in Iran, following the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran that shocked the world.

The group had narrowly avoided being taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries and were given sanctuary at the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, who risked everything to help the Americans, even when others turned them away. But the “houseguests”—as they came to be known—were in constant jeopardy of being found out and captured…or worse. With time running out, the CIA’s top exfiltration expert, Antonio “Tony” Mendez, devised a brilliant but outrageous escape plan.

Affleck explains, “Tony was friends with a famous makeup artist named John Chambers and knew it was a viable prospect for movie people to be traveling around, checking out different locations. He came up with an idea no one else would ever have thought of.”

The plan was for the six to pose as a Canadian filmmaking team on a location scout and then simply fly out…although it was anything but simple. Tony Mendez emphasizes, “This was a game with no rules, so it was extremely risky. The most dangerous thing about it was the capriciousness of the people we were trying to get around. We had no way of predicting what would happen if we got caught—to us or to those already held hostage.”

Joshuah Bearman, who, in 2007, chronicled the escape in a Wired Magazine article, relates, “The embassy seizure was a seismic event on the world stage. No one knew quite how to respond to the hostage situation in the embassy compound. The problem of the hidden houseguests was even trickier because diplomacy wasn’t an option. And with each day, the likelihood that they would be discovered grew. Eventually, Tony Mendez, who had ‘exfiltrated’ sensitive people from Iran and elsewhere before, stepped in with this plan.”

The rest of the interview can be read at Emmanuel Levy’s website

Argo is produced by GK Films, Smoke House and Warner Bros Pictures. It is going to have a wide release in cinemas on October 12th 2012.

Check out the latest news on the movie “The Paperboy” right in this blog

Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.