In fact-based films, how much fiction is OK?
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This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez, center, in Argo, a rescue thriller about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The debate over Argo has been much less intense, though there has been some grumbling from former officials in Britain and New Zealand that their countries were portrayed incorrectly in the film as offering no help at all to the six Americans, whereas actually, as Mendez writes in his book, they did provide some help. -- FILE PHOTO: AFP
NEW YORK (AP) - The scene: Teheran's Mehrabad airport, January 1980. Six United States (US) diplomats, disguised as a fake sci-fi film crew, are about to fly to freedom with their Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) escorts. But suddenly there's a moment of panic in what had been a smooth trip through the airport.
The plane has mechanical difficulties and will be delayed. Will the Americans be discovered, arrested, even killed?
CIA officer Tony Mendez, also in disguise, tries to calm them. Luckily, the flight leaves about an hour later.
If you saw the film Argo, no, you didn't miss this development, which is recounted in Mendez's book about the real-life operation.
