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I used to have an ongoing debate with a good friend of mine about whether or not Ben Affleck was a good actor.  I was firmly in the “He Can Act!” camp, and it was a lonely club with few members.  I felt that Affleck suffered from bad choices both professionally and personally.  But you have to examine his start to see why it wasn’t entirely his fault and why Matt Damon got the much sweeter deal.

Affleck spent most of his career in Matt Damon’s wake.  Affleck has a bit part in School Ties, Damon gets the meatier villain role.  Affleck gets a great starring role in Chasing Amy, Damon makes the top cast of Courage Under Fire.  Then things explode.  Affleck and Damon both write Good Will Hunting, with Damon in the starring role and Affleck relegated to a supporting character with very little to do.  After the Oscar, Damon gets an offer from Stephen Spielberg.  Affleck gets an offer from Michael Bay.

Now, Affleck didn’t make a bad decision here.  He made the ONLY decision he could.  Be a broke actor and hold out for a good indie role and gain credibility…or take the giant blockbuster paycheck in a movie directed by someone who hadn’t yet become the parody of himself he is today.  He took the paycheck.  And he wasn’t the only one.  Don’t forget he was in the good company of Michael Clark Duncan, Owen Wilson, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi, Liv Tyler, Jason Isaacs, Peter Stormare, Keith David and Bruce Willis.

But he also took Shakespeare in Love, which is a fine film (even taking into account it’s controversial win over Damon in Saving Private Ryan).  But it was at this crucial moment that Affleck made some unfortunate decisions. And again, they weren’t all his fault.  For every sappy romcom, he picked up leads in films that unfortunately didn’t work out, but nevertheless were spearheaded by interesting filmmakers: Kevin Smith, John Frankenheimer, Roger Michell, Phil Alden Robinson (if you’re a man, do not click that link as it will make you cry), Martin Brest and John Woo.  The problem is that all of those filmmakers, while capable of making good (and sometimes) great films, happened to make gigantic messes of the properties that Affleck was attached to.  Combine that with Pearl Harbor and “Bennifer” and Affleck spiraled into one of the most hated actors by the general public and specifically the increasingly vocal movie geek community.

To add insult to injury, Damon (who received more and more GOOD offers) began to eclipse any small victories Affleck made.  In most people’s minds, Affleck was finished.  And it was at this point that he began what I’ll call his Redford Renaissance.  Rising from the flames of burnt copies of Gigli, Affleck started picking some interesting films: Smoking Aces, State of Play, Extract and Hollywoodland.  But he truly hit his stride as a director with the fantastic Gone Baby Gone (which will always be a win with me if for no other reason than being a far better written and directed Boston flick than the abysmal Clint Eastwood helmed Mystic River).

After Gone Baby Gone, that’s when it hit me.  Affleck is this generation’s Robert Redford.  See if this trajectory sounds right: Overly handsome actor gets acclaim and disdain for being a pretty boy actor, but still delivers some hit performances then starts to get lost in the shuffle and turns his hand to directing where he often gets the best performances out of not only his actors but also himself.  The only difference is that you can argue that Redford had more acting hits than Affleck.  And that’s fine, because Affleck is 3 for 3 on movies that get better and better.  Which brings us to Argo.

As an aspiring filmmaker, one of the first things that struck me about the film after I left the theater was how few people can direct a political/historical drama like this without having a strong sense of history.  And I don’t mean the Wikipedia version of events, but someone who studied the time period and the struggles going on in Iran at that time.  Sure, the screenplay is going to give you a large chunk of that (and Chris Terrio’s screenplay is a marvel of tone, tension and tenacity).  But when it comes to framing the story, how to portray the Iranians and tackling the struggle of a film all about conflict with no real villain, that all falls to the direction.

Affleck traverses the tone difficulties so easily (and often with great, wry reactions delivered by the character he plays) that the film feels like it was directed by a golden age of filmmaking director from the 70’s.  And the 70’s are as part of the film as any other character.  But I love that he never goes for the easy gag.  No one’s winking at the camera about a piece of technology that would be state of the art in that time period and beyond dated in our current one.  Instead, the humor comes organically, and largely from the portion of the film dealing with Hollywood.

And it would be enough if these were the extent of successes for this film, but we can’t forget that Affleck was an actor, and he has shown film by film that he not only knows how to cast a movie, but also provoke his actors to deliver incredibly layered performances.  This movie is teeming with character actors (many of whom have acted alongside Affleck in the past).  Each and every one of them shines.  There are no weak links.  And considering there are an incredibly large number of character over three separate locations, each with their own tone and look, it’s a feat of epic proportions.

Affleck has reinvented himself and looks like he just might win the race against Damon to be the first to win a second Oscar.  That in itself is as impressive as his films.  What will be fascinating to see is where he goes from here.  All of his films so far have felt like 70’s movies (and not just Argo which is set in the 70’s).  What kind of projects will he choose now?  He’s been bantered about for two sci fi genre pics (League Of Justice and The Dark Tower).  Both are interesting choices, but extremely risky.  As he learned the first time around, it takes a long time to earn good will in LA and a Hollywood minute to lose it.  Here’s to hoping he makes some great choices and continues to impress us in new ways.