Movie Review ‘Desert One’: Tale of Iran Hostage Rescue Mission

‘There’s no greater privilege than rescuing somebody,” recalls Major William G Boykin, a Delta Force operations officer who helped lead the audacious, but doomed, April 1980 mission to rescue the 52 American hostages seized in Iran just under six months earlier.

Operation Eagle Claw, launched on April 24, 1980, would prove the quintessential fiasco of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and cement the impression that Carter was weak and inept, paving the way for the Reagan era. Yet few remember this historical hinge point today, so we should be grateful that an Oscar-winning documentarian, Barbara Kopple, has taken on the vertiginous, horrible story of the rescue mission in a powerful theatrical release, Desert One. Kopple is severely constrained in what she can show, as no film exists of the mission, and there are only a few still photographs. But if Desert One is visually just a series of talking heads — with the actual mission depicted, lamentably, in graphic-novel-style illustrations — the story is scintillatingly told by those who lived it, including Carter himself, at 95 now the longest-lived president in U.S. history. Carter remains blessed with a verbal acuity and sharp memory that are especially worthy of attention in 2020. Kopple, who won Oscars for both Harlan County U.S.A. and American Dream, also shares with us audiotapes, never before heard by the public, of Carter placidly learning of each horrifying development by phone from the chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, General David Jones.

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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‘There’s no greater privilege than rescuing somebody,” recalls Major William G Boykin, a Delta Force operations officer who helped lead the audacious, but doomed, April 1980 mission to rescue the 52 American hostages seized in Iran just under six months earlier.

Operation Eagle Claw, launched on April 24, 1980, would prove the quintessential fiasco of Jimmy Carter’s presidency and cement the impression that Carter was weak and inept, paving the way for the Reagan era. Yet few remember this historical hinge point today, so we should be grateful that an Oscar-winning documentarian, Barbara Kopple, has taken on the vertiginous, horrible story of the rescue mission in a powerful theatrical release, Desert One. Kopple is severely constrained in what she can show, as no film exists of the mission, and there are only a few still photographs. But if Desert One is visually just a series of talking heads — with the actual mission depicted, lamentably, in graphic-novel-style illustrations — the story is scintillatingly told by those who lived it, including Carter himself, at 95 now the longest-lived president in U.S. history. Carter remains blessed with a verbal acuity and sharp memory that are especially worthy of attention in 2020. Kopple, who won Oscars for both Harlan County U.S.A. and American Dream, also shares with us audiotapes, never before heard by the public, of Carter placidly learning of each horrifying development by phone from the chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, General David Jones.