Gee whiz, and I thgouht this would be hard to find out.

It is hard to resist the view that the timing of the exposure of the Russian sleeper cells in the US and the exposure of the public to the Hollywood representation of the very same theme are part of the same media event, which frames the public imagination and perception of the world. The movie is effectively reviving the Cold War and its psychosis. It says explicitly that the "Russian" plan is to "destroy America." If, during the "spy scandal," the sleepers were presented as more or less useless agents, the movie paints such sleepers as planted super-killers and fanatical mind-robots who threaten the lives of the president and pose a threat to the very heart of the US national security. Thus, through this movie, Hollywood once again controls "the message," and the media event becomes the frame of reference. There is nothing benign or glamorous about this. I wonder how the same plot and idea would have been received if the movie was made in Russia with Americans being cast as those subversive super-killers and implants who are bent on the destruction of their host country and if, in the US, such a movie received such a similar enthusiastic reception. Hollywood is a master in rewriting history and the past, but, now, it might become perhaps even more ambitious--trying to write the future too by turning the whole countries (i.e., Russia) into part of its cast. Many viewers will form their view of Russia based on a movie like this. And what view is that? A damn bad one--the charms of Angelina Jolie notwithstanding. She is just the Hollywood/American answer/anti-dote to the would-be seductiveness of the Russian woman so that anxiety and paranoia can live again: if you want to change the world, make a movie. Bur the end of the movie makes it clear that a sequel is coming. So stay tuned.