John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck in Argo. (Warner Bros. Pictures/Claire Folger)

Argo, the fictional film within the real film of the same name opening today, sounds absolutely dreadful. Billed as a $20 million—in 1979 dollars, mind you—rip-off of then-fresh Star Wars, it would feature a gang of space cowboys trekking through some alien bazaars filled with sexy extraterrestrials wearing nothing but anodized lingerie. Well, maybe that could work.

Fortunately, though, Ben Affleck’s Argo never shows us the fake movie, because the said fake movie never happened. It was all ruse to shuttle a group of Americans out of Tehran in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. embassy that left 52 diplomats hostage. But that story, directed by and starring Affleck, is worth watching.

As the revolutionaries besieged the embassy, six members of the visa office—the only part of the complex with access to city streets—made a hasty escape, eventually landing at the Canadian embassy. This is Affleck’s opening sequence, and he recreates the harrowing chapter in U.S. diplomacy with satisfyingly taut results. That Argo comes out just a month after al Qaeda-linked terrorists stormed the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya and killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens is a harsh coincidence, but Affleck’s tight focus and shaky camera-handling deliver a tense opening number.

Affleck gives himself the starring role of Tony Mendez, a career CIA spook who specialized in crafty missions that involved getting Americans out of unfriendly situations. With six unnerved diplomats lodged in Canadian custody with no chance of getting out of Iran themselves, the CIA weighed several “exfiltration” options. Most suggestions sucked, particularly one involving a 300-mile bicycle ride to the Turkish border in the middle of January. Spoiler alert: Northeastern Iran gets a lot of snow.

But, as detailed in a 2007 Wired article by Joshua Berman and in Mendez’s own memoir, the spy had a zanier idea: Partner up with some Hollywood types and tell the Iranians that the six visa officers were actually members of a Canadian film crew by way of Hollywood. Everyone wants to be in pictures, right?

Mendez dials up makeup artist John Gardner, a real-life figure—played here by John Goodman with lots of casual sass—who in addition to designing Spock’s ears and the facial appliances for Planet of the Apes, was a veteran CIA contractor. They team up with an old Hollywood king named Lester Siegel, played by Alan Arkin in one of the funniest performances of his career. For Argo, Siegel is a composite—the real Mendez and Gardner recruited another makeup artist—but Arkin’s portrayal of a Cormanesque producer is so riotous it’s credible. Arkin deadpans his way through a part that is nothing but zingers, and every one lands.

Though he captures a certain indulgent flavor of 1970s Hollywood, Affleck does not bog his film down in the luxuriant glamour. Mendez is there to work, not to be wooed by promises of cinematic stardom and after a few days, when production is locked with a real script under a fake production company, it’s off to Tehran.

As a director, Affleck’s first two films showed various bits of technical promise, yet both felt incomplete. His 2007 behind-the-camera debut, Gone Baby Gone, was an effective bit of police work, but its characters and story were a bit undercooked. The Town, in 2010, contained a few brilliantly orchestrated action sequences, but was otherwise vapid. And for both those films, Affleck didn’t have to go far from home, instead banking on his Boston upbringing.

With Argo, Affleck shows real growth as a director. In front of the camera he still gives himself the heroic role, but the movie-appropriate embellishments stay within bounds. There are a few frightful moments that never happened in real life, but Affleck has made a stirring espionage thriller. His focus on the nervousness of the six Americans stuck at the Canadian embassy ratchets the tension to twitchy heights. Affleck’s own character, meanwhile, is confident, but not always cocksure.

Affleck does not mean to be a gentle helmer, though. Like his previous films, this is a tale of men doing manly things, as the Langley scenes make quite clear. But there is still plenty of levity in Argo’s CIA bunker. Mendez’s boss, a wry and gritty Bryan Cranston, spits out one-liners that are on par with Arkin’s. Before entering a meeting with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and an adviser, Cranston warns Mendez that it’ll be “like talking to those two old fucks from The Muppets.”

For a director hitting a higher plateau of artistic maturity, Affleck is not too far off from Clint Eastwood’s better action-oriented films. Argo never lets the viewer not think that the rescue mission is one error from collapse. And aside from a hammy monologue by Jimmy Carter over the end credits, this is a lean, aggressive piece of box-office entertainment.

Now if someone would option Argo, the B-movie.

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Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck
Written by Chris Terrio
Starring Ben Affleck, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Kyle Chandler
Rated R for a healthy amount of swearing.
Opens today everywhere