The body of this text will only focus on the first part of the title - the overrated part. Yes, the hostage rescue operation has been declassified, and I have read up on what I could find on the internet. Yes, it sounds like Argo diverts credit from the Canadians to the CIA. It also deviates too much for my taste from the actual historical events and the real stories of the people involved including that of Mendez. However, this is a movie, and it is made primarily for entertainment, even though it is unfortunate that producers don't shy away from going too far with their historical deviations... Therefore, in the category of historical accuracy, I am prepared to give Argo some slack despite the choices it makes that are entirely counter-productive to quality. I will, however, focus on why Argo fails to live up to the hype.

The Iran hostage crisis is a significant milestone in the modern history of the Middle East, and I am deeply disappointed to see Argo fail to deliver any substance on the subject matter. This film could have been epic in the hands of the right people. Unfortunately, in its current state it deserves neither the awards nor a majority of the positive reviews it received. I am especially shocked it won Best Motion Picture of the Year over the likes of Django Unchained and Lincoln, both of which were nominated alongside Argo.

First of all, two hours is not long enough for a plot of this magnitude. I will never understand why they always try to stay close to the magic 2-hour mark... If the plot, and in this case history(!), is being compromised for other factors, then the product lacks the quality the subject matter deserves. I just suggest people stop making historical events into production films if they will not do the history justice. In this regard, Argo doesn't devote enough screen time to tell the story in an adequate manner of how this blowback of a crisis came about. I am not here to suggest right from wrong in terms of foreign policy or internal affairs. As the viewer, I just want to see the complete story because only when both sides of the story are told do I walk away having extracted a lesson from the product. Now, the pace of this movie is already quick and leaves many holes where I would have liked to see more substance. Despite this pace, it barely manages to cover the main points to a conclusion. This is why I wish they had 3 hours of runtime or longer, provided they would have used that time productively... There is so much lacking in so many essential areas such as character development, the political build-up to the crisis, a convincing account of the Iranians' motivations for the attack on the embassy, and more... This is what I mean in saying that Argo could have been an epic film. Instead we have a lot of wasted potential.

Finally, the escape sequence from the Canadian ambassador's house all the way to the aircraft being airborne is filled to the brim with cliché close-call sequences. While I will give Argo a millimeter more slack here because I don't want to discount the entertainment value of this, I will criticize the sheer lack of imagination of everyone involved on how to increase the suspense in a story. They had all the ingredients handed to them on a silver platter by actual historical events to have the audience at the edge of their seats for 2 hours, and they chose to do it only in the last 20 minutes and in the most implausible manner.

Long story short (...is what this movie should have been called), Argo does not do justice to the history by which it was inspired. It fails to deliver any substance due to possibly lack of runtime and/or deliberate choices. Yet probably the worst legacy of Argo is the fact that no one else will attempt to make another film on this topic for decades now because it has already been made...