Argo

I have to apologize to Ben Affleck. I've avoided Gone Baby Gone, I skipped The Town. After seeing Affleck's newest film, ARGO, I can't wait to go back and watch them. Comparable in every positive way to Spielberg's "Munich" and Fred Zinnemann's "The Day of the Jackal", ARGO is a masterpiece. From the moment the late seventies Warner Bros. logo fills the screen, followed by a smart, fast history lesson on the USA and Iran, I knew I was in the hands of a great director. I can't remember the last movie I saw that was this fast, this suspenseful and this well done. ARGO details the story of six Americans who escape to the Canadian Embassy as the American Embassy in Tehran falls. CIA operative Tony Mendez, in a very good performance by Affleck, concocts a plan to sneak the six out of Iran pretending to be a Canadian film crew. Alan Arkin is excellent and hilarious as a b-movie producer who takes part in the plan by creating a lot of buzz around the fake film. John Goodman plays John Chambers, a real-life Academy Award winner for the creation of the Planet of the Apes makeup, who takes part in the plan and Bryan Cranston is Affleck's boss at the CIA. This is a great cast in a GREAT film. ARGO moves so fast and so brilliantly that all you can do is fasten your seatbelt and experience the mission. On top of being a crackerjack thriller, ARGO also makes you think about America's role in the world and the hostages in Iran as the flame that sparked the radicalized Islamic world we live in today. I predict Argo walks away with Best Picture and Best Director next year. It's very early in his directorial career to call ARGO Affleck's masterpiece, but it ensures I'll be the first in line to see whatever he does next. RUN to see this movie, it's fantastic, and my favorite film of 2012. An A+ for Argo.