Argo

"Argo" tells us that it is "based on a true story."  The key word there is "based."  That leeway gives the movie enough rope to hang itself.

The film tells the tale of a CIA operation to extract six diplomats hiding in Tehran during the Iranian hostage crisis.  The CIA--with a lot of help from Canada that isn't acknowledged much in the film--flew out the diplomats under the cover that they were filmmakers doing a location shoot.

An obvious question emerges: Who would believe that a Canadian film crew wanted to shoot a movie in Tehran in the midst of an international crisis?  I suspect the answer is that the Iranians simply weren't paying attention.  The diplomats were picked up, went to the airport, made it through security, and left, with no issues.

But "Argo" makes it seem as though the Iranians are hot on the heels of the diplomats, which renders the whole thing ridiculous.  The film uses some stupefying leaps of logic to manufacture pulse-pounding drama in the airport.  (I won't spoil it, but I will say that I don't think a CIA operative would defy an order from the President.)

The film also invents a scene in which the diplomats are invited on a tour through a market for location scouting.  We're told that they're calling the CIA's bluff.  But if they really wanted to do that, they would have simply detained the diplomats, interrogated them, and uncovered the ridiculous ruse.

There are other problems.  The first half of the film has some jarring shifts in tone, jumping between the very different spectacles of Hollywood and Tehran protests.  It also tacks on a disposable subplot involving the son of a CIA agent.  The first 20 minutes of the film are terrific, but they hit a note that "Zero Dark Thirty" sustains for over two hours.  The rest of "Argo" is well-made, but about as fanciful as "The Artist."