The Fall of the Soviet Union

The Soviet system was clearly not working. And the economy of the country just couldn't keep up and the system was breaking down. So when this guy shows up in the movie to try to get the rights for the game Tetris from a Soviet computer agency, there's all this wheeling and dealing going on with these Western capitalists because they were all trying to get theirs before the system fell apart. That's what is kind of the backdrop of what's going on in this movie.