B+
Ben Affleck's best directorial effort (and it's not even close) feels less cinematic than it does like damn good television. And that isn't necessarily a slight, folks. Really, Affleck's Iranian hostage caper has suspense the genre rarely ever sniffs these days in deftly directed sequences where one false move means you're dead. You've got to admire the pace, especially when CIA fixer Tony Mendez's finally comes together with an exclusive Hollywood table read, paralleled by a brutal sequence involving embassy hostages suddenly on the brink of execution.
But where Affleck's film falls short (oustide of his kind-of bland, know-it-all lead performance) is giving us reasons beyond nationalism to give a crap about the folks who need rescuing. The U.S. Embassy employees have the wherewithal to sneak out during the raid and find temporary safety, but they leave their colleagues high and dry and alone to deal with a crisis lasting nearly an entire year. The escapees/fugitives find shelter in a Canadian ambassador's swanky penthouse, where they enjoy fancy dinners, wine and laughs, all while said colleagues could get killed at an instant. And once Affleck and the U.S. swoop in for the rescue, they whine about it.
So much happens in this jam-packed thriller, it's tough to slow down and develop these (and any other, for that matter) characters. The film only barely suffers as a result, thanks to that rapid pace and Affleck's relatively forced dramatization of true events.
A review by Ben Flanagan
