Argo (Jo*****)

Ben Affleck has almost positively settled into his niche - an accomplished director who is fully capable of great acting and creating solid movies. From 'The Town' to 'Gone Baby Gone' and now 'Argo,' Affleck is a man to watch out for, and certainly comparisons to Robert Redford are no longer blasphemic.

Argo is set in a not too unfamiliar time when Iran was in conflict with America, a time when clashing political beliefs and anger set the world into the seemingly never-ending spiral downward. The film opens on the storming of an American Embassy in Iran by protestors from the street. Seeing this as the opening of the film was simply astounding, and I shivered from the level of sophistication with which the sequence is assembled. From those held hostage, 6 Americans manage to escape and flee to the Canadian Embassy, where they hide for months with no hope of escape. Though they shredded nearly all American paperwork and documents, we see Iranian children busy sifting through the shreds to reassemble the photographs and papers - papers that show they have 6 hostages missing…

And here the film truly shines. Back in the United States, the CIA is busy to think of any way to smuggle these 6 out of the country, but to no avail. Riding bikes several hundred miles to the border is sheer absurdity, and everyone knows it. Ben Affleck stars as Tony Mendez, the agent responsible for getting these people out, using an idea concocted while watching a movie with his son. Under the disguise of a film crew, they will pretend to be location scouts for the science fiction film 'Argo,' and using Canadian passports, will fly out of Tehran in plain sight.

The tension of the film is coupled by truly hilarious moments, mostly from the Hollywood side of the story. John Goodman plays John Chambers, an Oscar-winning makeup artist, who forms a fake production company with director Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). Under an increasing time constraint, it is amazing how much Affleck fits into the film without ever overwhelming the audience with too much information.

Yes, the film follows a fairly predictable pattern and the ending is all but assured, but here is a film that audiences truly appreciate. A film that understands the language of movies, and drama, and writing, and with great ease succeeds in being one of the most surprising and entertaining movies of the year.

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Arkin), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score)