This is the Hollywood version of the facilitated escape of 6 US diplomats from Tehran back in 1980. It was the CIA which did it although the Canadians helped and got the credit. They were smuggled out on Swissair as a film production crew for the fake SF film of the title.
Full marks for a top-grade thriller: the CIA operative had nerves of steel. The dialogue was witty too: we're in Hollywood meeting a top film executive who's going to be crucial to the cover story. He's on set for another rubbish swords 'n' sorcery epic. A minions runs up with a complaint: 'The Minotaur says his costume is too tight - he can't act.'
Sotto voce to camera: 'If he could act, he wouldn't be playing the Minotaur.'
Imagine this for a spoof plot. A machine-bureaucrat ascends to the CEO job and is exposed in less than two months as an inept prisoner of process. He is booted out ('resigns') with a pay-off of almost half a million pounds. And his employer is a public corporation of impeccable moral standing.
Hard to believe.
