Film / Argo

Joe Stafford: You really believe your little story's gonna make a difference when there's a gun to our heads?
Tony Mendez: I think my story's the only thing between you and a gun to your head.

Argo is a 2012 American thriller drama film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, written by Chris Terrio, and produced by Affleck, Grant Heslov and George Clooney. It is a fictionalized account of a real CIA operation in 1980, in which six escaped American hostages were covertly rescued from Iran by agents posing as location scouts for a film adaptation of Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.

With tensions building in the already-volatile Iran, a group of revolutionaries storm the United States embassy and take a number of its staff members hostage. Six employees in a neighbouring building manage to escape, however, and take up refuge in the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador. Ten weeks later, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez (Affleck) is asked by the CIA to help get them out of the country. Working with Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) and makeup artist/director John Chambers (John Goodman), Mendez devises a plan to get the employees out of the country by having them pose as a production crew scouting locations for an unproduced science-fiction script called Argo.

With their options limited and the Iranian revolutionaries stepping up their search for the missing Americans, it's up to the three men and their CIA contact, Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston), to get the six employees out.

The film was adapted from the true story of the declassified 1979 rescue mission, and was the third directorial effort for Affleck after Gone Baby Gone and The Town. It won the Oscar for Best Picture as well as Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay.

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This work provides examples of:

• 555: On the business card for the fake production company, Studio 6.
• Accentuate the Negative: Throughout the movie, and particularly in the intro, Argo describes the deposed Shah of Iran as The Caligula — a cruel, decadent, despotic puppet of the United States who forced foreign trends on his people all while living in uncaring luxury as the country went down the toilet. While these facts were individually accurate, the film neglects to present the positive aspects of the Shah's rule that were also there, such as religious tolerance, giving land to peasants and equal rights for women. Though it made sense in the context of showing why the Iranians were so angry throughout the film, it isn't quite an accurate summary of his reign.
• Actor Allusion: A subtle one near the end where John Goodman's character attributes a quote to Marx. Alan Arkin's character replies, "Groucho said that?" In a memorable scene from The Big Lebowski, Goodman's character blew up when someone confused a Lenin quote with a Lennon quote.
• America Saves the Day: The film has Mendez (a CIA agent) take the lead and ultimate responsibility for rescuing the employees trapped in the country. It raised some complaints in Canada for emphasizing the CIA role in the extraction and deemphasizing the role of the Canadians (see Focus Group Ending). The film makes it clear that the Canadians are taking a big risk hiding the Americans and their participation in the extraction operation is vital such as supplying passports, but the ambassador knows that everyone is in danger and is trying to find a way that doesn't involve his house-guests getting executed, even if it means agreeing with the plan to turn the hostages directly in to the Embassy, so they can be extracted by Delta Force. The film has also been criticized for the Historical Villain Upgrade given to Britain and New Zealand, who both provided crucial support for the six during their time in Tehran.
• Anachronism Stew: The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance was not formed until 1984. At the time, the ministry was known as National Guidance and then Islamic Guidance.
• And Mission Control Rejoiced: The CIA, and also Lester and John, cheer and hug when the plane that Mendez and the six diplomats are on successfully clears Iranian airspace.
• "Arabian Nights" Days: The In-Universe Argo film seems to be evoking this, and the Iranian culture minister sarcastically asks if it will feature "snake charmers and flying carpets".
• Artistic License – History: See the examples here.
• Art Imitates Life: In the credits, photos of the real people and events are shown next to recreations from the film. Notably, the shot of the body hanging from the crane was toned down — the photo that inspired it has three cranes-turned-gallows.
• Badass Pacifist:
  • Tony doesn't hold a gun, doesn't even throw a single punch in the entire movie. He doesn't have to.
  • The recording by President Carter played during the credits calls attention to the fact that all hostages were brought home peacefully.
• Big Bad: The Shah initially. Then Khomeini takes this role.
• Big Fancy House: Siegel's Hollywood mansion, which has a room full of the awards he's won and a massive swimming pool.
• Brick Joke: Seigel tells how a waitress complained about what the Canadians had done in freeing the hostages. "How come we can't do something like that?" Instead of blowing security, Siegel naturally replied: "Argo fuck yourself!"
• Burn Baby Burn: Subverted. As the protesters try to scale the walls of the embassy, the staff is ordered to destroy any incriminating evidence that might lead to Iranian retaliation down the line. Two staffers try to use an incinerator to dispose of classified and sensitive data, but it breaks shortly thereafter, and they are captured while trying to shred the rest. The revolutionaries then use sweatshop workers to reassemble the shredded documents and learn the identities of the missing employees.
• The Caligula: Both the Shah and Khomeini are depicted as this.
• Call-Back: When Tony is flying into Iran, a flight attendant informs the passengers that they are revoking alcoholic beverages upon entering the country's airspace. Similarly, an attendant informs everyone that alcohol is available again when they fly out of Iranian airspace. This time, Tony has the hostages in tow.
• The Cameo:
  • Michel Parks has a brief, "blink and you'll miss it" role as comic book legend Jack Kirby, who was responsible for drawing the Argo concept art in Real Life (you can see his concept artworks here). He's never explicitly named in the dialogue, but the ending credits confirm that it's him.
  • Philip Baker Hall and Bob Gunton make a brief appearance as CIA Director Stansfield Turner and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance respectively.
  • Famed Iranian filmmaker Rafi Pitts appears as a consulate officer.
• Captain Ersatz: In-Universe, the titular fictional movie has a cast of characters that appears to consist entirely of poorly disguised Star Wars ripoffs, including Luke, Leia, C-3PO, and Chewbacca, with the exception of the villain, who's instead a ripoff of Ming the Merciless.
• Casting Gag: Adrienne Barbeau appears as a diva actress doing Hollywood sci-fi & horror B-movies, which is exactly what Barbeau is (not a diva, but acted in such movies during the early 80s).
• Checkpoint Charlie: Discussed at length by the main characters. Mendez and the employees have to get through three checkpoints of escalating scrutiny at the Iranian airport in order to make their flight.
• Chekhov's Gun: Every part of the production constructed by Mendez, Chambers and Siegel is studied by the Iranians at one point or another later in the film: the fake business card, the phone line, the Variety article on the making of the film and the storyboards.
• Chekhov's Skill: Tony's a skilled document forger, as shown near the start when he is preparing a fake Soviet passport. When he arrives in Tehran, Ambassador Taylor gives him the passports for the six and notes that they're all blank. Later, Tony is applying stamps to each of the six passports to make them appear well-used.
• Commander Contrarian: Joe Stafford takes great offense to the plan to get himself and his co-workers out of the country, and refuses to participate until Mendez tells him his real name and background - and even then, he's still very cynical of the whole operation. At one point, Mendez's boss orders that they be turned in to the Embassy, as Delta Force is prepping to extract the hostages from the Embassy. We all know how THAT went. Fortunately, Mendez continues with the op.
• Composite Character:
  • Siegel and O'Donnell.
  • Tony Mendez actually had three children. His one son in the film was originally named Michael, after the oldest, but he asked for it to be changed to Ian, the youngest, who had recently died of colon cancer.
• Crazy Enough to Work:
  • When Lester Siegel sums up the plan:
    Lester Siegel: Okay, you got six people hiding out in a town of what, four million people, all of whom chant "death to America" all the livelong day. You want to set up a movie in a week. You want to lie to Hollywood, a town where everybody lies for a living. Then you're gonna sneak 007 over here into a country that wants CIA blood on their breakfast cereal, and you're gonna walk the Brady Bunch out of the most watched city in the world.
    Tony Mendez: Past about a hundred militia at the airport. That's right.
    Lester Siegel: Riiiiight. Look, I gotta tell you, we did suicide missions in the army that had better odds than this.
  • As pointed out by Tony early in the film to the people in State Department, a plan to get the personnel out when dealing with odds this long is going to be absurd and he shoots down a few of the Department's alternatives too^note it's winter in Iran so using an agricultural cover is out, the schools are closed so giving them a teacher cover is out, a humanitarian cover is out for the same reasons as agricultural (and the implication State would have screwed up the cover's advertisement), giving them reporter covers is inviting Iran to murder any member of the foreign press that sets foot on the country in retaliation if they are caught, and the plan to have them ride bikes out of the country is in the realm of "too complicated".
• Dartboard of Hate: Played for Drama. A member of the mob storming the embassy is furious when he discovers a picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini with several darts stuck in it.
  Mob Member: Who did this? (grabs dartboard, turns towards Embassy employees in the room, who cower in fear as he shows them the dartboard) WHO DID THIS?!
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Chambers and Siegel.
  • The Culture official that interviews Mendez suggests that they want their movie to be about "the exotic Orient... snake charmers, magic carpets."
  • Mendez himself can be snarky at times. He suggests to "just send in training wheels and meet them at the border with Gatorade" when the CIA suggest to deliver bicycles to the fugitives in attempt to make them escape from Iran.
• Development Hell: In-universe. The "official status" of the Argo film project after all was said and done.
• Diplomatic Impunity: Averted. The Iranian revolutionaries completely disregard any American diplomatic privileges once they take power. Later, that includes the Canadian staff the moment they realize they're harboring American fugitives, but the Canadians made their escape from the country before it happened.
• Disappeared Dad: Mendez hasn't been back to see his wife and son in quite some time due to his work with the CIA, and he finally gets home to Virginia to see them at the end of the film.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Tony is showing the Iranian airport security the storyboards for the film, the plot Joe Stafford describes in Farsi sounds a lot like the Iranian Revolution IN SPACE, which is part of what makes the guards let them through.
• Doing It for the Art: In-Universe. Lester takes the task of finding a script for the operation very seriously, declaring "if I'm gonna make a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit."
• Dramatic Irony:
  • The initial assessment is the hostage crisis will blow over in 24 hours. It lasts 444 days.
  • The Iranian woman working as the housekeeper seeks safety in another country. It's Iraq. Iran and Iraq would soon be at war.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Subverted. After O'Donnell calls Mendez to let him know he's canceling the mission, the latter begins to drink in his hotel room... only to throw the mostly-full bottle on the bed a short time later before making a decision.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: The Azadi Tower in Tehran and the Hollywood sign both make aerial-montage appearances, with the latter shown in decrepit condition (anachronistically so, apparently for symbolic reasons; it had been restored in 1978).
• Embarrassing Cover Up: Inverted in that it is not played for comedy — this is the reason why, halfway through the film, the op is cancelled and Mendez is ordered to turn in the six Americans to the Embassy, where Delta Force will extract them.
  Six Americans get pulled out of a Canadian diplomat's house and executed, it's a world outrage. Six Americans get caught playing movie make-believe with the CIA at the airport and executed? It's a national embarrassment.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: In-Universe, Argo, the script, is described to a Revolutionary Guardsman as the Iranian Revolution IN SPACE!.
• Follow the Leader: In-universe. Argo, the script, was written to cash in on the Star Wars craze.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • From history, we know the staff are going to get out safely.
  • At one point, the operation is ordered to be cancelled, the six escapees told to be turned in to the Iranian-controlled embassy, as they are to be rescued by Delta Force in an operation of their own. Said operation ended in complete failure.
• For the Evulz: In one scene, the Iranian militants pretend to execute some hostages just seemingly to scare'em or demoralize'em.
• Gallows Humor: As Jack drops Tony off at the airport.
  Tony Mendez: I should have brought some books to read in prison.
  Jack O'Donnell: Nah, they'll kill you long before prison.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: At a time when the US Government is being strongly criticized for failing to free the hostages, the CIA's role has to remain secret to avoid retaliation on the remaining captives. Mendez couldn't even accept his medal from the CIA until the mission was officially acknowledged years later.
• Grenade Hot Potato: During the storming of the embassy, a U.S. soldier fires a smoke grenade into a crowd. One of the participants in the riot immediately picks it up and lobs it back in the military's general direction.
• Grumpy Old Man: Lester Siegel.
• Guile Hero: Tony Mendez embodies this entirely in how he manages to get six people who are being hunted by an entire country in the most dangerous and publicized part of the world at the time with nothing but a producer and a makeup artist handling the logistics. He and the six escapees make it out of Iran despite everything being on the line. His expression also barely changes.
• The Heavy: Ali Khalkali, the chief of the Iranian militia who tries to capture the American fugitives.
• Horrible Hollywood: As Chambers describes it, Hollywood is full of hacks and untalented people or productions, funded by people only in it for the money. A shot of the famous Hollywood sign missing some letters (when in reality, it had been fixed up by that time) underscores it and one of the reasons for disguising the operation as a movie is that movie producers are some of the only people sleazy enough to still be doing business there, in the middle of a crisis.
  Tony: It's an exfil, from the worst place you can think of...
  Chambers: Universal City?
• Hollywood Old: Inverse; Victor Garber was 63 when cast as Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor, who was 43 during the Iranian Revolution. Taylor even joked in an interview following the release of the film that Garber looked more like him in the present day than he did in 1979.
• Hostage Situation: A government official at the embassy goes outside to reason with the hostile crowd, and immediately gets captured. He is then used as a Human Shield to bluff the soldiers guarding the door to open up and let the crowd storm the building.
• Hypocrite: The Republican Guard who stand in the way of the protagonists drop their Moral Guardians pretenses upon seeing scenes from the fake film when it sucks up to their expectations. They even pass slides around of the half-naked heroine, which, in a heavily conservative state, would be frowned upon.
• Invisible President: Downplayed. Jimmy Carter is mentioned several times and shown in stock footage, but is not portrayed in the film; his final approval for the mission comes via telex. Over the credits there is an audio excerpt of a Carter interview, where he talks about the mission.
• Jaded Washout: Lester's deeply cynical about the movie industry, calling it a "bullshit business." Klein accuses Lester of the "washout" part, although Lester's convincing negotiation proves that he's still got sway.
• Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Lester Siegel may be a crotchety, foul-mouth, wheeling, dealing, manipulative, cynical old bastard estranged from his family, but the moment he's asked to save the hostages he steps up to the plate.
• Just in Time: The climactic airport sequence has a whole series of them: first, Swiss Air initially has no reservations to confirm, until the CIA approves it in time. They then come to the pre-boarding screening, where they're singled out by the Revolutionary Guard, who asks them what the group is doing there. The Guards decide to hold them until they get some form of approval — which would be nice if Chambers and Siegel weren't being held up by a film outside their office. Chambers manages to answer in time after Siegel walks through the set, just as the Guard on the other end is about to hang up. Then the Sweatshop completes one of the shredded ID files from the Embassy, and a militiaman rushes to inform the Guards — by this time, the group has already boarded, and the plane is taxiing. The Guards attempt to block the taxi and shoot out the tires, but the plane's too fast.
• Just Plane Wrong: More like Just Truck Wrong or a combination of the two. The Revolutionary Guards chase the plane down on the runway in several vehicles and are at speed with the plane as the nose rotates for liftoff. So either they have some really fast trucks that can go at a plane's takeoff speed or the plane is travelling too slow to take off.
• Kick the Dog: The mock execution (which was unfortunately Truth in Television) seemed to serve no purpose beyond terrifying the hostages and being an extremely cruel joke by the hostage takers.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "You can teach a Rhesus monkey to be a director in two days." This line is spoken to the film’s actual director.
• Logo Joke: The 1972-84 stylized-W-in-a-CRT-screen-shape Warner Brothers logo was used.
• Limited Wardrobe: Mendez wears the exact same blue blazer throughout the film (although he wears different shirts underneath), while the employees keep the same clothes through the entirety of their time at the embassy.
• Male Gaze: The audience's introduction to the read-through is a lingering pan up to Side Boob shot of an actress in a Stripperiffic space babe costume.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In-universe. Studio Six Films, the production company Mendez and Chambers set up, is named for the six Americans hiding in Tehran.
  • This isn't mentioned in the film, but coincidentally, the SwissAir plane that they escaped on was named Aargau.
• Men Can't Keep House: When we're introduced to Mendez, he lives in a tiny, sloven apartment, with Chinese food strewn absolutely everywhere.
• The Men First:
  • Tony is the last one to leave the terminal and last one on the plane.
  • Earlier when they escape the embassy, the six make sure that the Iranians who came in to apply for visas to the US are the first ones out, as being caught applying for an American visa would be a death sentence.
• Metafictional Title: Argo is the title of the non-existent film that extractor pretended to be producing. Although this is Based on a True Story, it's close enough to qualify for the trope.
• Mirroring Factions: Footage of Iranian protesters burning American flags outside the embassy is shown, and then immediately after footage of American protesters burning Iranian flags outside of the consulate is shown to mirror their attitudes.
• Mobstacle Course: Mendez and the employees are forced to drive through a hostile crowd on their way to a production meeting with a government official. Said meeting with the government official also nearly triggers another one, when people are trying to figure out what's the ruckus being made by an angry shopkeeper, who assaults the official.
• Mood Whiplash: From spy thriller to hostage drama to Hollywood satire, most dramatically when a press event involving the Argo script being read by the cast is intercut with the Iranian radicals conducting a mock execution of their captives.
• Moral Guardians: The Revolutionary Guard are initially disgusted by the (by conservative Islamic standards) half-naked girl on the Argo cover.
• The Moral Substitute: The Iranian government is developing their own film based on the events, referred to as "an appropriate response to the ahistoric film 'Argo'," titled The General Staff.
• Nerd Glasses: Several characters sport very large circa-1979 glasses.
• Nerves of Steel: Tony walks in and out of an extremely hostile Iran with his expression barely shifting.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Mendez's motto, which he explains at the beginning to O'Donnell, and again during a later conversation.
• Oh, Crap!: The receptionist in the U.S. embassy once she realizes the mob has broken through the front line defenses and are running into their offices. She simply says, "They're here," and puts down the phone with a frozen expression. Most of the staffers can only stare as hordes of protesters swarm in and angrily take them hostage. ^note In real life, most of the embassy personnel were able to retreat to an emergency shelter.
• Old Retainer: John Chambers, an Oscar-winning makeup artist who had done work for the CIA to craft disguises. He's Tony's initial contact in setting up the fake movie.
• Period Piece: Perhaps the most accurate depiction of The '70s since the seventies.
• Photo Montage: In the credits, stills from the movie are paired with photographs of the real people and some of the real events involved.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: The exfiltration mission is set up so that the employees will all assume the roles of a production crew. During the last half of the film, all of them are required to have at least one moment emphasizing their assigned skill (Anders is asked questions about the style of movie he's making, Kathy takes photographs of the local market, Lijek films with a handheld camera, Lee and Cora answer questions about themselves at the checkpoint, and Joe ultimately saves the party by explaining the plot of the film in Farsi to the security at the Iranian airport).
• Powder Keg Crowd: The Iranians around the embassy at the very beginning of the movie.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • O'Donnell has several, perhaps most notably concluding a rant at a superior for not backing up him and his operation: "DO YOUR FUCKING JOB."
  • And of course, as Lester Siegel is asked what the title "Argo" means: "It means 'Argo fuck yourself!'"
• Public Execution: While traveling to the Canadian embassy for the first time, Mendez passes a male civilian who was hanged, with people casually walking by below.
• Race Against the Clock: Not long after Mendez is brought in to help with the exfil, the revolutionaries realize that not all of the embassy staff were captured. Sweatshop kids are used to reassemble the shredded documents, which eventually allow the Iranians to know what the missing six look like.
• Real Footage Re-creation: The film restages several iconic photos and recordings of the Iranian Revolution, including street protests, the storming of the US embassy, and the infamous hanged men suspended on cranes. Several of the recreations are referred to in the credits.
• Refuge in Audacity: The whole plan.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: While the Shah gets a Historical Villain Upgrade, the film's portrayal of the Revolutionary Guards isn't flattering or heroic either.
• Romantic Comedy: The Iranian guide who takes the "filmmakers" to the marketplace asks the "director" if their film is a romantic comedy about a "foreign bride" that comes to Iran and the inter-ethnic hilarity that ensues. He's disappointed when he's told it's not.
• Rule of Three: The number of times the phrase "Argo fuck yourself" is used in the film.
• Running Gag: The phrase "Argo fuck yourself" is uttered repeatedly by the team throughout the first act, and once more following the climax.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After O'Donnell calls to say the mission has been scrapped, Mendez mulls it over, calls him back in the morning and says he's going to see it through anyway because he won't leave anyone behind. This causes the CIA to scramble to make sure the operation is maintained.
• Secret History: Oh, you thought the rescue was known as "The Canadian Caper" because Canada handled most of the rescue? Nah, that was just a coverup for CIA doing all the work. "Thanks, Canada".
• Self-Deprecation: A good chunk of the movie makes fun of Hollywood, especially the roles of producers.
  • Tony Mendez, played by Ben Affleck who was also the producer, is told to his face that he can't be the producer, he doesn't have the look, and is an associate producer at best.
  • Chambers also tells Mendez (played by the film's director) that anyone can be a director and "You can teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day."
  • Even the CIA gets in on the act. "This is the best bad idea we have, sir... by far."^note The best idea they had before Argo was to get the embassy members onto bikes — motorized or not — and go 300 miles to the border — in winter — to be picked up. Mendez mocked the plan, asking where they would get a support crew to follow the riders to refuel or fix any problems.
• Shirtless Scene: A very small one but unavoidable as Ben Affleck is the leading man.
• Shout-Out:
  • The camera angles and cinematography used during the scenes in the CIA headquarters were said by Affleck to have been copied from All the President's Men (which was also set and filmed during The '70s).
  • The movie Mendez's son watches on TV that ends up inspiring his operation is Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
  • When Mendez needs a second approval for his op, he's warned beforehand that the two CIA suits he talks to are like "the old assholes from The Muppets."
  • The way Jack Stafford describes the plot of Argo (in Farsi) to the Revolutionary Guard at the airport, complete with sound effects, is reminiscent of C-3PO telling the ewoks about the Rebel Alliance in Return of the Jedi.
  • While most of the costumes at the screenplay reading are Star Wars ripoffs (including what appears to be a Chewbacca costume dyed blue), the "villain"'s outfit is a blatant Ming the Merciless imitation.
  • A couple of original Cylons are seen on their lunch break on a Hollywood backlot.
• Shown Their Work: During the closing credits, as the film shows photos of real people and events next to shots from the film.
• Show Within a Show: Argo, a fake movie meant as an escape plan for the six Americans on the loose.
• Single Tear: When Mendez arrives in the airport, a Revolutionary Guard roughs up a civilian. Shortly after, there's a lingering shot of a terrified Muslim woman, with a single tear dropping down her eye.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Lester Siegel has the largest number of profanities of all characters.
• Space Opera: Argo, the script-within-a-film.
• The Stoic: Despite being surrounded by a nation full of hostiles, a terrified bunch of houseguests, and a nigh-impossible mission in his hands, Tony maintains a calm, bland face for most of the movie. Not all the time, though.
• Stylistic Suck: In addition to being similar to the Iranian Revolution itself, the Argo script is a knowingly-cheesy Star Wars ripoff that takes very heavy Middle Eastern influences^note The actual source novel, Lord of Light, takes from Middle Eastern and Indian mythology, complete with laser guns and robots. During the table reading, the crew reads out parts while dressed in Chambers' cheap sci-fi costumes. One character is wearing what can only be described as a Chewbacca costume dyed blue.
• Tempting Fate: When Tony arrives in Istanbul, his British contact quotes a CIA assessment from just before the takeover that claimed "Iran is 100% not in a pre-revolutionary state."
• This Is the Part Where...: Joe Stafford expressing his horrified skepticism upon hearing Mendez's plan.
  Joe: This is the part where we're supposed to say it's so crazy that it just might work??
• Token Enemy Minority: Sahar, the Iranian housekeeper at the Canadian ambassador's house makes it apparent that she's figured out who the houseguests are fairly early into the movie, but keeps them a secret when the Revolutionary Guard shows up to ask her if the six have been staying at her house. In the end, she flees to Iraq, either because of this, or because she had no sympathy for the revolution.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: One of the hostages describes the fictional Argo movie as this to some airport guards, and makes it sound like a metaphor for the Iranian Revolution itself. The guards approve.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The VW van. Presumably it got left in the car park, but it appears they just decamp at the set-down area. "There is no stopping in the Red Zone, the White Zone is for..". It doesn't look like Mendez hired it from Hertz, so there wasn't a key-drop. Maybe there was valet parking...
  • More significantly, test audiences were initially very concerned about Sahar, the Taylors' Iranian maid, so a final scene was added showing her escaping into Iraq.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Regarding the declassification of the mission in 1997, and the characters' whereabouts in the present day.
• Wine Is Classy: Played With. During the script-reading at the Beverly Hilton, Mendez takes a glass of wine to fit in with the crowd, then immediately puts it on a tray after taking a sip. Later on, he begins shotgunning glasses of it during the script-reading to loosen up.
• World of Snark: The CIA apparently considers being a Deadpan Snarker a prerequisite to hiring.
• You Are Too Late: Antagonist (in)version. By the time the Iranian security forces realize the scheme at the airport, the six are already on a plane in its takeoff run.

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"Argo fuck yourself."