Telefon (2020 remake)

Telefon is a 2020 American spy film directed by Sean Durkin and starring Elizabeth Olsen, Dylan Minnette and John Cusack. The film is a remake of the original 1977 film and is loosely based on the novel of the same name.

Plot
Not long after the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s, the Soviet Union deployed a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States of America, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they did not know they were agents and can be activated only by a special code phrase. (The phrase is the Russian National Anthem, followed by the agent's real name.) Their mission was assassinate key political figures of Washington, D.C. in hopes that it would bring about the predictable World War III.

The 90s eventually come around, and the Cold War gradually gives way to decline. Narrowly escaping a relentless purge of loyalists, Nikolai Dalchimsky (John Cusack), a renegade KGB headquarters clerk, travels to Chicago, Illinois, taking with him the Telefon Accords which contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of up to 51 sleeper agents in America. Dalchimsky starts activating them, one by one and the American counterintelligence is thrown into confusion when seemingly ordinary citizens blow up what were meant to be locations where politicians visit, and then commit suicide.

The now defunct KGB dares not tell its neighboring political leaders, much less the Americans and Canadians, about its negligence in not deactivating the spy system. Former KGB Agent Veronika Borzov (Elizabeth Olsen), who is selected for her photographic memory, memorizes the contents of the only other copy of the Telefon Accords. Borzov is then sent to find and stop Dalchimsky quietly, before either side learns what is happening, which would greatly throw the KGB into a state of panic and possibly even start World War III between the powers. Borzov is given the assistance of only an Irish-born Scottish spelling prodigy, Benji (Dylan Minnette), employeed to America years before.

Eventually Borzov realizes the method behind Dalchimsky's pattern of attacks: he has chosen the agents by the first letters of their American hometowns, "writing" his own name in sabotage across America. Using that information, Borzov is able to anticipate Dalchimsky's next chosen sleeper agent, and locate and arrest Dalchimsky for his crimes.

However, it turns out that Benji has orders from both the ambitious MI5 and the reformed IRA to assassinate Borzov once she succeeds, to get rid of a dangerous loose end. In addition, he is an undercover agent working for the joint division between the IRA, the French GIGIN, the CIA, and MI5. When he informs his Canadian superior, Sandburg (Angela Bassett), she also tells him to kill Borzov, so he will retain the confidence of the the world's agencies. However, Benji has fallen in love with his target. After informing Borzov, they work together as they blackmail both the joint division into leaving them alone, holding the threat of the remaining Telefon agents at bay.

Cast

 * Elizabeth Olsen as Agent Veronika Borzov
 * Dylan Minnette as Benji
 * John Cusack as Nikolai Dalchimsky
 * Angela Bassett as Sandburg