Is there anything worse than competent mediocrity? Because, surely this is competent, perhaps more than competent, professional, well shot. I will put aside for the moment that there is no characterization to speak of here, that it is flimsy as procedural, that its politics are unnecessarily uncomplicated (good CIA battles evil Islam), its tone uncertain, with all the goofy movie-making stuff sticking out like a sore thumb. The film is soulless, painting by numbers.
The movie was fake after all, but the mission was real.
In Affleck's case, there is something worse. Because you see, he does not attempt to 'write history with lightning', as was said about Birth of a Nation a century ago. He softly rewrites the thing. The Canadian stuff has (rightfully) received the most backlash. Imagine this—the CIA analyst who advised Affleck, there had to be one, thought it would be a good idea to end this insinuating the CIA did all the job, but graciously let Canada reap the publicity.
But this was too blunt and it backfired, bringing to the fore the more subtle marginalization of Canadian intelligence work all through the film, which otherwise would have perhaps passed with little notice. The film after all establishes that the Canadian ambassador has taken the six in, even though in his fleeting screen time, he hovers about as a 'kindly concierge', as another reviewer put it.
You will see a more insidious version of this mentality in the opening few minutes of the film, sketching past US intervention in Iran—the film admits US backing of the Shah and his oppressive regime into power, human rights abuses and so on, but curiously, this part is mainly animated in the form of storyboards, mirroring those we see later of the fake film, as something near- mythical that happened in another time and world. Smart.
So, why the heck are we celebrating Affleck? The film shows him to be a blockhead who can put the camera sometimes in the right place.
