Argo Monologues

Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979.

We got an office, we got business cards, we got a poster. If I'm the Revolutionary Guard, that's nothing we couldn't have made at home. Six people's lives depend on this. It's not enough. If we're gonna fool these people, it has to be big. And it has to have something that says it's authentic.

Sir, exfils are like abortions. You don't wanna need one. But when you do, you don't do it yourself.

Fade in on a starship landing. An exotic, Middle Eastern vibe. Women gather, offering ecstatic libations to the sky gods. Argo. A science-fantasy adventure.

This is what I do. I get people out. And I've never left anyone behind.

My name is Tony Mendez. I'm from New York. My father worked construction. My mother teaches elementary school. I have a wife and a ten-year-old son. You play along with me today and I promise you, I will get you out tomorrow.

And we think everybody knows Hollywood people. And everybody knows they'd shoot in Stalingrad with Pol Pot directing if it would sell tickets.

Sir, if these people can read or add, pretty soon they're gonna figure out they're six short of a full deck. It's winter. You can't afford to wait around till spring so it's nice enough to take a bike ride. The only way out of that city is the airport. We build new cover identities for them, you send in a Moses, he takes them out on a commercial flight.

Okay, you know those science fiction movies? "Star Trek", "Star Wars". They need an exotic location to shoot. Moonscape, Mars, desert, you know. Now, imagine this: they're a Canadian film crew on a location scout for a science fiction movie. We put it out there - the Canadian producers put out there - that we're looking at Egypt, Istanbul. Then we go to the consulate and say "Hey, we wanna look at Iran, too." I fly into Tehran, we all fly out together as a film crew. Done.

John Chambers. He's a Hollywood prosthetics guy. He's got an Oscar, he did "Planet of the Apes", and he's done a bunch of contract work for us in the past. I go see him, he sets us up. One, two days, make it look real.

"The Minister of Culture and Guidance has approved your location scout. He will send his representative to meet you and your crew at the Khayyam entrance to the Grand Bazaar tomorrow at 3 p.m."

I don't have a choice. We say no, they show up at the residence and drag everyone out at gunpoint. How well do you think their covers are gonna hold up while they're getting their fingernails pulled out?

First time anyone's gonna ask you a question is at the first checkpoint. The first checkpoint is just to get a look at your passports. Passports came straight from Ottawa last week. They're clean. The second checkpoint... is immigration. You're each gonna hand them one of these. It says that you landed in the country two days ago. They'll look for the matching white one, which doesn't exist. You'll say you don't know what happened. And if you believe they lost the white slip, they'll believe it, too. The third checkpoint is the trap. It's manned by the Revolutionary Guard. Most of them were educated in the U.S. and Europe. And all of whom are looking for Americans.

This is the best bad idea we have, sir. By far.

I am not going to leave him at the airport with six people and his dick in his hand. Tell the Director to call the White House. Do your fucking job!

Brace yourself; it's like talking to those two old fucks on "The Muppets".

It all just changed. They called the game. You've got to come back. Joint Chiefs are planning a military rescue of the hostages in a month. Delta Force started training to storm the grounds. So if the six of them get brought down there, they won't be held for long.

It's over, Tony.

Listen to me. The thinking's changed. 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. They're calling the operation.

What we are is required to follow orders. I'm sorry.

He wants to give you the Intelligence Star. You're getting the highest award of merit of the clandestine services of these United States. Ceremony's on the 14th.

The op was classified, so the ceremony's classified. He can't know about it. Nobody can know about it.

Okay, you got 6 people hiding out in a town of what, 4 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.

Well, what can I say? Congratulations. But see, if kind of worries me what you said, let me tell you why. A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in Trader Vic's, I was enjoying a mai tai, when my pal Warren Beatty comes in. He wishes me well, and we have a little chat. Seems he was attached to star in 'Zulu Empire,' which was gonna anchor that MGM slate, but Warren confided in me that the picture's gone over budget because the Zulu extras want to unionize. They may be cannibals, but they want health and dental. Which means the movie's kaput, so the MGM deal ain't gonna happen, and your script ain't worth the buffalo shit on a nickel. So the way it looks to me, through the cataracts I grant you, is that you can either sign here and take ten thousand dollars for your toilet paper script, or you can go fuck yourself! With all due respect.

So I'm sitting in Jerry's this morning, having breakfast, a waitress comes over to me, she's waving a newspaper and she says, 'You see what those Canadians pulled off? Why can't we do something like that?' And I said to her, you know what I said?

'Argo fuck yourself!'

It's got horses in it, it's a western.

Bad news, bad news. Even when it's good news, it's bad news. John Wayne in the ground 6 months and this is what is left of America.

This is the Persian Empire, known today as Iran. For 2,500 years, this land was ruled by a series of kings, known as shahs. In 1950, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mossadeqh, a secular democrat, as Prime Minister. He nationalized British and U.S. petroleum holdings, returning Iran's oil to its people. But in 1953, the U.S. and Great Britain engineered a coup d'etat that deposed Mossadeqh and installed Reza Pahlavi as shah. The young Shah was known for opulence and excess. His wife was rumored to bathe in milk while the shah had his lunches flown in by Concorde from Paris. The people starved. The shah kept power through his ruthless internal police; the SAVAK. An era of torture and fear began. He then began a campaign to westernize Iran, enraging a mostly traditional Shiite population. In 1979, the people of Iran overthrew the shah. The exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to rule Iran. It descended into score-settling, death squads, and chaos. Dying of cancer, the shah was given asylum in the U.S. The Iranian people took to the streets outside the U.S. Embassy, demanding the shah be returned, tried, and hanged.