Angelina Jolie should send Russia her love - in Morse code, of course.
Anna Chapman, the sexy 28-year-old accused with 10 others of being a Russian sleeper spy, has made Jolie's upcoming thriller "Salt" seem ripped from the headlines.
A sleeper spy is an agent who lives among us, assimilating our culture and assuming our way of life.
Forget "No Way Out" - this is a case of No Better Timing.
In the film, due July 23, Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a 20-year veteran of the CIA with a husband and a dull suburban life. When she's accused of being a Russian sleeper trained since girlhood to be a physical and mental superspy, she fights for her life while an assassination attempt is brewing against a diplomat. Salt goes from blond to brunette to escape detection, and makes a rocket launcher out of everyday office doodads.
Chapman - a divorced, Russian-born economics major who lived in a swanky Financial District apartment - was "a highly trained agent," according to prosecutors, going from brunette to redhead as she passed info to spymasters from her homeland for years. Chapman and others in the ring lived in the five boroughs, in New Jersey and Yonkers, and met at places we pass every day. Feeling the red heat, the femme fatale dot-com entrepreneur tried to warn her handlers before being nabbed by the feds Sunday night.
While Chapman's mole patrol seems like a B-grade Hollywood knockoff, the parallels with Jolie's character couldn't have been set up any better by James Bond's Q branch.
Though the Cold War's been over for some 20 years, this country is suddenly spy-obsessed again. And "Salt" is not the only sign of reignited fascination.
Just as Chapman and her comrades allegedly tried to infiltrate high-profile social circles in New York, agents were again invading American entertainment. In addition to Angelina's highly anticipated flick, this summer has already seen the secret-agent-as-everyday-folks movies "Killers" and "Knight and Day." Coming up is "Operation: Endgame," about rival spy teams; the Bruce Willis action thriller "Red," in which deadly former agents get back on duty; and the NBC series "Undercovers," co-created by J.J. Abrams, the mind behind "Alias."
"Sleeper cells tap into the paranoia we all have that we don't really know who our neighbors are - especially in New York," says Paul Levinson, chairman of media studies at Fordham University.
"The idea that anybody could be an enemy agent is frightening and appealing for this paranoid part of our brain. It's the things that are around us that we take for granted that hold the most danger.
"What happens when we see real-seeming spy stories in movies is, we think about our own situations and we realize that being able to know what's going on around us is an illusion."
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced Hollywood to find new villains. Yet the notion that enemy agents walk among us - or eat in the next booth at the coffee shop in Queens - has remained powerful.
The players may have changed since 9/11, but, as seen in shows like Showtime's "Sleeper Cell," the fear is still there.
"In the aftermath of 9/11, there's been focus on agents who look different from us, and the idea of profiling has been the danger on several levels," says Levinson.
"But when it's the girl next door - well, that remains a great story we just can't put down. That idea of 'the Russian superspy' will always be with us."
Even a statement about the 11 arrests by a Russian government spokesman recognized the "Spy Vs. Spy" nature of the weekend's events.
"We do not understand the reasons that have prompted the American Department of Justice to make a public statement in the style of Cold War spy tensions," the spokesman said.
Somewhere, someone is pounding a fist on a desk. Cue the music.
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