If you were anything like me two years ago, after seeing Argo you were blown away by the process the CIA — with the help of Canada — went through to rescue six American hostages in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. I wanted to know every single thing there was to know about the mission, since it seemed so crazy that it actually worked. They made up an entire movie and everyone bought it! But what was "real" versus "reel" (a.k.a., Hollywood made it up) as the CIA put it in their Twitter spree regarding Argo ? Well, luckily, the Central Intelligence Agency loves Argo as much as the next person, and decided to put some of the questions on the once classified mission to rest.
There were a lot of moments in Argo that were adrenaline pumping, terrifying, and heart stopping. The majority of those moments — whether it was the piecing together of the hostages' pictures moments before the rescue flight took off, or whether or not the tickets were going to go through for the hostages — didn't actually happen, according to the CIA. Instead, it sounds like the climax of the film — when Ben Affleck takes the six hostages to the airport to fly out of Iran — was actually a lot more anticlimactic than it really was.
Here are some of the best "reel vs. real" Argo facts that you definitely want to know.
The overtake
There were two Ben Afflecks
The location scout scene
It wasn't called off
There weren't any ticket problems
They also weren't detained
The shredded pictures were real
There was a mechanical delay
The celebration was real
#NoDisrespectToBenAffleck
Images: Warner Bros.
