Educational Media Reviews Online

The 2012 Hollywood movie Argo told how a CIA agent was able to get six Americans out of Iran in 1980 after the U.S. Embassy was overrun and 52 Americans were taken hostage. The six managed to escape and take refuge at the Canadian Embassy in Iran. The story focused on how the agent, Tony Mendez, developed a ruse to get the six out of Iran with false Canadian passports, saying they had been in the country scouting locations for a science fiction movie named Argo. The actual movie of that name won 3 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but many Canadians were unhappy that the work done by Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, and others from his country, was minimized by Hollywood. Our Man in Tehran is a Canadian documentary that aims to set the record straight and tell the full story of Canadian involvement in the rescue.

The filmmakers got extensive interviews with Taylor, his wife, Roger Lucy, first secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Iran, and Joe Clark, who was Prime Minister of Canada at the time of the hostage taking. The six Americans who were rescued are featured, as is William Daugherty, who was one of the 52 Americans held hostage, and who was held in solitary confinement after the Iranians learned he worked for the CIA. Canadian journalists present in Iran at the time provide background on the country and events leading up to the hostage taking. Gary Sick, a National Security Council employee who specialized in Middle Eastern affairs, and Tony Mendez explain how the U.S. government was handling the crisis.

Some of the information delivered early in the documentary may be familiar to those who remember the hostage-taking and its background. The real value comes from the tidbits that are generally not known. Ambassador Taylor did substantial reconnaissance on the U.S. Embassy when it was held by the Iranians and noted the best times and means of entry and escape for a proposed hostage rescue by U.S. commandos. The Canadian government officials who approved the forged passports were breaking the law, and Mendez says it’s something that would not have happened in the U.S.

Taylor says when the fake movie idea as cover for the escapees was introduced, it was going to be a documentary that aimed at giving a sympathetic portrait of the revolution. He said the Iranian government would love the idea, and easily accept the six escapees as Canadian filmmakers trying to help Iran’s image. But Americans like to do things big, and “they got caught up in themselves, the wonder of this marvelous idea they had.” A Canadian journalist wonders why the cover story involved six purported Canadians who were supposed to be making a big Hollywood feature film.

The details related about the Americans going to the airport and boarding the flight to freedom also confirm what a viewer of Argo may have suspected, that the last-minute chase by Iranians of the Americans and the flight takeoff in the nick of time was a fabrication to add extra tension to the scene.

The DVD includes an interview with the directors and a Toronto International Film Festival panel session with many of the participants in the documentary. Argo is derisively referred to as “the other movie” and the fake airport scene is mocked. The moderator of the panel says Our Man in Tehran is a film every Canadian should see. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s a movie every American should see, but I do recommend it to public and academic libraries as a worthwhile companion piece to Argo.