Extremely disappointing thriller directed by David Fincher and adapted from the popular novel by Gillian Flynn.
I’d heard great things about it, but it turns out to be oddly mannered and unconvincing.
It’s a tense and exciting thriller that keeps you guessing. Can Doug escape his past and his criminal associations to run off with the woman he loves? Or is he destined never to leave Charlestown except by following his father into prison?
Cleverly, it gets you to empathise with Doug rather than with the FBI agent investigating him (Jon Hamm). And the romantic story is all the more affecting because you know it’s doomed. The only criticism is that Affleck looks too healthy and well-presented to be as desperate as his character is supposed to be.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Doyle Gipson, an insurance salesman and recovering alcoholic fighting for custody of his children. Ben Affleck plays Gavin Banek, a lawyer engaged in shady dealings in the firm of his father-in-law (Sydney Pollack). The two men’s lives collide, literally, when they have a minor road crash in New York. This event sets in motion a sequence of escalating dramas, giving them both the worst day of their lives.
It’s extremely powerful because it engages on a moral level, exploring what happens to reasonable people in unreasonable situations. Jackson and Affleck are at their best. The supporting characters, including Gipson's wife Valerie (Kim Staunton) and his AA sponsor (William Hurt), are also excellently drawn.
I couldn’t imagine how the ending could satisfy, but somehow they pulled it off.
Russell Crowe plays a Washington Globe journalist investigating a series of deaths that are linked to his friend, a congressman (Ben Affleck).
It’s an exciting drama that touches on a lot of themes. There’s political and corporate corruption. There’s also a celebration of old-school news reporting, with a nice platonic relationship between the experienced journalist and the young recruit (Rachel McAdams), who represents the world of blogs and digital news.
Crowe is as good as ever, but all of the main actors are excellent. Helen Mirren is the tough newspaper boss who is to Crowe what Judi Dench’s M was to Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Jeff Daniels is a Congressman with secrets. Robin Wright plays the politician’s wife, who has a “history” with Crowe.
Director Kevin Macdonald had previously made films about mountaineering disaster, Mick Jagger and the 1972 Munich Olympics, and you can see a certain documentary style applied to this fiction too.
Only the generic, interchangeable title lets it down.
In November 1979, Iranian extremists stormed the US embassy in Tehran as a result of the USA (under Jimmy Carter) granting the Shah political asylum. A total of 66 staff were taken as hostages, but six diplomats escaped and were given shelter by the Canadian ambassador. Incredibly, CIA operative Tony Mendez (played here by Ben Affleck, who also directs) travels to Tehran in an attempt to rescue the six under the premise that they are making a science-fiction film, Argo, in the region.
It’s tense and exciting stuff. The sense of threat is built up with real expertise. The storytelling is lucid. All of the characters are portrayed brilliantly, with no weak links. Even John Goodman, who plays a prosthetics expert (alongside Alan Arkin as a film producer), is reined in enough that he cannot mess it up.
