The movie moves at a good pace, the street scenes are nicely filmed. The 80's - or rather the late 70's atmosphere is well present in the movie despite somehow simplistic set-ups and presence of spare era elements - cars, clothes, etc.

The movie does a poor job of expressive the Iran atmosphere of that era, or at least the daily life or a hint of the culture of Iranian people under the regime, probably because it was filmed on a budget and mostly not on location.

So the plot line is quite well written and filmed. What's is shocking is the rave reviews considering the main character play is null. Unless you are a hard core fan of Ben, there is just no play from this character. He has decent play in other of his films, but here it seems he's forcing himself not to show emotions or expressions. The remaining of the cast does an OK job, Goodman is up to the job but all of them seem detached from each other, acting individualistically.

There are other historical hostages crisis movies out there, some of them are magical, tense and impregnate with local atmosphere of the specific times. This movie is not even at the bottom of the list.