Film Review: Reviewed By Damon Wise; 5 out of 5

A true story that involves the CIA, Hollywood and the anti-American regime of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini shouldn't be as seamless as this gripping, beautifully performed and often very funny but dramatic thriller. The year is 1979 and the US embassy in Tehran has been stormed, with many of its workers taken hostage. However, six have fled, and are being secretly sheltered by the Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber), but time is running out. The CIA has exhausted every avenue, including a feeble plan to whisk them out on bicycles, so when "exfiltration" expert Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) suggests disguising them as a film crew and scouting locations for a Star Wars rip-off, it seems as good an idea as any. Alan Arkin and John Goodman are superb as the operation's jaded Tinseltown connections in a terrific story that deftly offsets tension with comedy. The excellent screenplay also examines the nature of storytelling and resolves the conflict, for once, with coolness and clarity.

Plot Summary

Six Americans escape the seizure of the embassy in Tehran as the 1979 Iranian revolution erupts, but remain fugitives within the country. A CIA operative hatches an audacious plan to arrange for a fake movie to be filmed in the country, using the shoot as cover for a rescue mission. Fact-based drama, directed by and starring Ben Affleck. With Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman.