The big spoiler is the real hero of the story is Ambassador Ken Taylor and Canadian Foreign Affairs in Ottawa. Tony Mendez did nothing and his plan was scuppered as too elaborate by Canadian officials who got people out using their own resources. You should not be taken in by a movie or a trailer.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/arti ... d-straight

Since we're getting all nitpicky here:



I don't know where in that article that it said that "Tony Mendez did nothing". And to say "his plan got scuppered" implies that the Argo ruse wasn't used, when it was. While the filmmakers are indeed guilty of downplaying the role of the Canadians in the historical events, you seem to have swung the other way and negated the efforts of the CIA entirely, which also goes against the historical record.

Was it a one year rule or did I remember ~10 years?

Either way...you gotta go into anything written or shown about a film expecting spoilers. That's at least my mindset...

I don't know where in that article that it said that "Tony Mendez did nothing". And to say "his plan got scuppered" implies that the Argo ruse wasn't used, when it was. While the filmmakers are indeed guilty of downplaying the role of the Canadians in the historical events, you seem to have swung the other way and negated the efforts of the CIA entirely, which also goes against the historical record.

In Tehran, moreover, Mendez “was totally in our hands,” Taylor said. His involvement over his weekend in Tehran was “not much . . . just some visa stamps. Ottawa had provided everything else.”

Despite the eventual successful rescue from Tehran, the operation did not go off without hitches. The Canadians discovered that one of the CIA's forged Iranian visas had been mistakenly issued in the future -- its forger had "misinterpreted the Farsi calendar." Relations with the Canadian government were also strained at times; Mendez recounts that some Canadian forgeries "terribly outclassed" those made by the Americans. The CIA's maps also showed the incorrect location of the Canadian Embassy, where the agents were supposed to meet their Canadian contacts. After arriving at what was actually the Swiss Embassy, the two CIA agents had to act like lost tourists, asking Iranians on the street for directions. The final error occurred in the pre-dawn hours the day of the escape. Mendez awoke at 3 a.m. to a phone call; his alarm was set to wake him at 2:15 a.m. He had overslept.

Tony Mendez just had documents on him saying they were all Canadians their occupation was irrelevant and the movie angle was irrelevant as they just walked through Iranian customs without a single question raised by the Iranians because they were Canadians first and foremost.