Hello all,

Since there's nigh 600 reviews here already on this title, I'm trying to deliver one from the aspect of where it was partly shot and how it's obviously a movie.

Way back when, there was this semi-authentic joke about easily discovering an American spy because they read the newspaper from the front. It's authentic in the sense that I too have learned to start reading from the back, and thus, any movie shot in Budapest and generally in Hungary I take with a grain of salt. I felt no compelling to open a goof tab on errors in geography when the characters quantum jump all across town, that being the only explanation how places really far away from each other just share a corner.

Yet, there are other signs this is simply a movie. Yes, it's genuine that applying for a pool membership only happens in Hungarian, and Dominika is still Mystique because she knows what expression means what. Nice feat in a language that isn't even Indo-European. Even more amusing that the public transportation is never late, or, that the subway cars don't catch fire as they do in reality.

Nate is also a magician or has found a cool way to rip off Uncle Sam without him batting an eye. I'm basing that on him ad hoc renting that very quiet, very downtown apartment by his lonesome. Such places in reality only go on a yearly basis and they are not cheap, not even by Western standards.

I haven't read the source material so I'm unaware how much of it was used, but I do know that it was published 5 years ago, at which point Hungary's foreign affairs started to stray away from NATO and into courting Russia, so in real life it wouldn't be too smart for an American agent to operate under hostile conditions.

I did enjoy it, and the one thing I do say to detractors is this: it's not inaccurate to portray Russia as a continuous system of exploitation and favors, voters do acknowledge this much by looking to the state for solving all their ailments. It's also accurate to state that there are many things that Russia censors from its citizens to "keep societal order".

Having said that, this movie had showed me Lawrence's limitations. Either production wanted to save on preparation costs or she simply can't do it, but that accent was atrocious. I can buy a Russian operative not speaking the language publicly to keep a cover (Richard Sorge pulled that off for decades), my beef was a different scene, where she used an Americanism. When in control, actual Russian operatives would either use a transliteration of a Russian adage, or an internationally known one, not something from the enemy which they genuinely view as decadent weakness.