Ben Affleck's smart comedy about a bogus film shoot cooked up by the CIA to rescue Americans trapped in Tehran takes an unfortunate last turn
Ben Affleck's new movie as a director is an amazing real-life caper straight out of Ripley's Believe It or Not! It tells the true story of some imaginative derring-do on the part of a brilliant and unorthodox CIA agent called Tony Mendez. This is a watchable, enjoyable film, with some hilarious and nail-biting moments, but it sets its face disconcertingly against satire and mischief with a final lurch into schmaltzy, liberal-patriot piety. It is as if Aaron Sorkin, in his most solemn mood, had suddenly taken over screenwriting duties for the final 10 minutes.
The movie is, in effect, based on Mendez's own testimony; as with all spies' tales, we're entitled to our pinch of salt, but his story is just so incredible it...
Ben Affleck's new movie as a director is an amazing real-life caper straight out of Ripley's Believe It or Not! It tells the true story of some imaginative derring-do on the part of a brilliant and unorthodox CIA agent called Tony Mendez. This is a watchable, enjoyable film, with some hilarious and nail-biting moments, but it sets its face disconcertingly against satire and mischief with a final lurch into schmaltzy, liberal-patriot piety. It is as if Aaron Sorkin, in his most solemn mood, had suddenly taken over screenwriting duties for the final 10 minutes.
The movie is, in effect, based on Mendez's own testimony; as with all spies' tales, we're entitled to our pinch of salt, but his story is just so incredible it...
- 11/9/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Jonathan Franzen's family epic, a new collection from Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin's love letters, a memoir centred on tiny Japanese sculptures ... which books most excited our writers this year?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In Red Dust Road (Picador) Jackie Kay writes lucidly and honestly about being the adopted black daughter of white parents, about searching for her white birth mother and Nigerian birth father, and about the many layers of identity. She has a rare ability to portray sentiment with absolutely no sentimentality. Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House) is a fresh and wonderful history of African-American migration. Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered (Little, Brown) is a grave, beautiful novel about people who experienced the Korean war and the war's legacy. And David Remnick's The Bridge (Picador) is a thorough and well-written biography of Barack Obama. The many Americans who believe invented biographical details about Obama would do well to read it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In Red Dust Road (Picador) Jackie Kay writes lucidly and honestly about being the adopted black daughter of white parents, about searching for her white birth mother and Nigerian birth father, and about the many layers of identity. She has a rare ability to portray sentiment with absolutely no sentimentality. Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House) is a fresh and wonderful history of African-American migration. Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered (Little, Brown) is a grave, beautiful novel about people who experienced the Korean war and the war's legacy. And David Remnick's The Bridge (Picador) is a thorough and well-written biography of Barack Obama. The many Americans who believe invented biographical details about Obama would do well to read it.
- 11/27/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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