Voice-over: But in 1953, the U.S. and Great Britain engineered a coup d’état that deposed Mosaddegh and installed Reza Pahlavi as shah. The young shah was known for opulence and excess. His wife was rumored to bathe in milk while the shah had his lunches flown in by Concorde from Paris. The people starved. The shah kept power through his ruthless internal police: The SAVAK. An era of torture and fear began. He then began a campaign to westernize Iran, enraging a mostly traditional Shiite population.
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Lester: Okay, you got six people hiding out in a town of, what, four million people all of whom chant “Death to America” all the livelong day. You want to set up a movie in a week. You want to lie to Hollywood, a town where everybody lies for a living. Then you’re gonna sneak 007 over here into a country that wants CIA blood on their breakfast cereal and you’re gonna walk the Brady Bunch out of the most watched city in the world.
Tony: Past about a hundred militia at the airport. That’s right. Lester: Right. Look, I gotta tell you. We did suicide missions in the Army that had better odds than this.
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Lester: Couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at Trader Vic’s, I was enjoying a Mai Tai when my pal Warren Beatty comes in. He wishes me well, we had a little chat. Seems he was attached to star in Zulu Empire which was gonna anchor that MGM slate. But Warren confided in me that the picture’s gone over budget because the Zulu extras wanna unionize. They may be cannibals, but they want health and dental so the movie’s kaput…which means that the MGM deal ain’t gonna happen and your script ain’t worth the buffalo shit on a nickel.
因此，當《亞果出任務》在片尾用字幕告訴觀眾：「直到今天，這個故事仍然是政府間國際合作（指美國和加拿大）的不朽典範（To this day, this story stands as an enduring model for cooperation governments）」。筆者欲嘗試以一點點的警覺來看待電影中傳達的訊息，無論這部片本身，或是這次的奧斯卡頒獎典禮，是否真有意宣傳美國中情局人員的機智（另一方面在電影中呈現伊朗暴動的畫面）。因為，我們都不該在「不知不覺」中接受了一個作品所傳達的價值判斷標準。
但是這樣的任務是有難度的，第二段對話中，李斯特說，東尼要潛入的是伊朗的大城德黑蘭，那裡不但人多，而且個個都唱著「美國去死頌」（chant “Death to America”），因他們痛恨美國在經濟和政治上的干預。東尼要騙過好萊塢，讓大家以為他是真的要拍電影也是一大挑戰，因為好萊塢的人是以「說謊」維生的。這裡李斯特應無意貶低演戲事業，畢竟他自己也是電影工作者，只是他點出了演戲就像是說謊一樣，如果不夠真實，就會被戳破。東尼的計畫，欲在一週內拍假電影，前往德黑蘭取景，然後讓加拿大大使館裡的六人「扮演」錢伯斯和李斯特事先幫他們安排的電影工作人員，意圖騙過伊朗的政府單位和海關，最後順利搭上飛機回到美國。這難度之高，李斯特認為自殺式行動的成功率還比較高呢。「成功率」的英文是odds，指一件事能否完成的可能性，所以李斯特說他說：「We did suicide missions in the Army that had better odds than this」。
儘管很艱難，東尼還是決定放手一搏。第三段對話中，他選好了劇本，和李斯特一起打算買下拍攝的權利，但是卻遭到冷嘲熱諷後拒絕。此時，我們見識到李斯特做為一個「好萊塢人」如何展現他的專長：演戲／說謊。他說，幾週前才遇到一位好友（知名演員華倫比提），他主演的《祖魯帝國》本將是米高梅公司的大戲（Seems he was attached to star in Zulu Empire which was gonna anchor that MGM slate）。anchor這個字當名詞是船錨的意思，主要的作用就是把船穩定住，因此也可以用來指使人感到穩定、安全的東西。這邊當動詞使用，意思是「繫緊」、「寄託於」，也就是米高梅公司非常重視這部電影，把票房寄託於它的意思。而米高梅（MGM）是美國一家電影公司，他們的商標是一頭金色獅子的頭，在片頭處還有幾聲獅吼，應該許多觀眾都有看過。
