Parents need to know that this mature thriller explores the connections between media-induced paranoia, individual madness, and terrorism. The focus on one man's increasingly doubtful perspective makes the plot ever murkier -- it's hard to tell what's real and what he's imagining. Violence includes hostage-taking at gunpoint, fighting/punching and bloody faces, a man hitting his wife, and a SWAT team storming a door with automatic weapons drawn. A brief early sex scene isn't explicit (close-ups of faces are shown in silhouette). Language reflects the movie's increasing tension and anger, with many uses of "f--k," plus "s--t" and a string of anti-Arab racist terms (including a variation on the "N" word).

Families can talk about the media's effect on people's fears and opinions of others. For example, do TV news reports frame reports of terrorist threats in a way that encourages viewers to suspect their neighbors or distrust people who look or act different from them? If so, how and why? Are news reports ever truly objective? How would you respond to someone who looks "suspicious"? And who defines what "suspicious" means in the first place?