Pop Culture Journal- Argo

Ben Affleck’s suspenseful, cleverly, original true-life thriller had me off of my seat from the get-go by using accurate footage showing us the history of where things had started between Iran and America.

Argo makes this story feel very real and intense by giving us background on the relationship between America and the Muslin world. Using vivid attention to detail and characters, the movie emphasized the many important parts. One scene from Argo that is most significant, indicating whether or not the Americans are caught leaving the country, is at the airport. This scene includes multiple assumptions that the Americans will be caught.

            Before leaving for the airport, Affleck makes sure that all of the characters know their profiles. He drills them with questions about their fake life such as, birthday, family, occupation..etc. When the characters get to the airport, it was easy to say that this would be an intense scene by the background music, camera angles, and how concentrated the characters looked. They got to the front desk to grab their tickets and the tickets weren’t coming through the computer. Affleck asked the desk attendant to try to find them again, knowing that this could be the end of things. The tickets finally came through and it was time to walk through immigration. This part of the scene, yet again, had me holding my breath. The Iranians could not find one of the characters visa papers, so he was held up. It’s hard to tell whether or not they would be caught. Finally, they get to the line to board the plane and as the Iranians are checking passports they pull all of them to the side. They start to drill them with questions about why they were here. They wouldn’t let the characters go until they got consent that the reason they were in Iran was true: to find a place to film a movie.
            Holding them hostage was merely extreme. This was important because it determined whether the six Americans along with Affleck would make it safely back to America. This was a far-fetched way of returning, but they made it happen. When they finally sat down on the plane, it was easy to think that everything was over, until the Iranians figured it out and chased the plane down. The characters on the plane now knew that it would only be by chance that the plane would take off or not.