Argo // DVD Review

DVD of the Month – Argo

You, dear reader, unfettered by the shackles of a writer’s deadline, will be idly pawing over this column on a crisp and optimistic March evening, last month’s Oscars blub-off nought but a nebulous memory. However, I’m writing this on a grey and pissy February night, 24 hours before the aforementioned glittery gang-bang, and, unless my film-critic faculties have failed me, tomorrow night Argo will take the 2013 Oscar for Best Picture. (If it didn’t, simply substitute Oscar for Golden Globe or BAFTA or Critic’s Choice Award. It already got those. Thanks Ed.)

And of course it did (Jesus, I hope it did.) Ben Affleck’s true story of an audacious 1980 CIA plan to rescue American diplomats from a gone-bonkers Iran by means of a fake Sci-Fi film couldn’t be more pro-tinseltown if its soundtrack were a repeating loop of “Hooray for Hollywood.” Having said that, though, it’s a thoroughly deserving winner (Jesus, I hope it won.) It’s intelligently crafted, brilliantly acted, flawlessly authentic and consistently gripping. Most impressively, though, it manages to evoke the epic quality pervading the same great 70’s disaster/drama movies it stylistically references, such as The Poseidon Adventure and All the President’s Men.