The Power Elite has a special message for you in "Arlington Road."
No matter what they show you on the evening news, you'll never know the real story.
By disguising traumatic events like the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Ruby Ridge Shootout, the film subverts them in a mind-bending conclusion, to wit, the Power Elite is always in control.
In the movie, the mad bomber-terrorist tricks the patsy-chump, who just happens to be the protagonist, into doing the dirty deed for him.
Set in the midst of a thicket of conspiracy theories and homegrown terrorism, in a 1950s "Leave It to Beaver" style Washington, D.C. suburbs, "Arlington Road" is about the subversion of history -- and ultimately its unknowability, when the string-pullers are pulling the strings.
Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges), a history professor at George Washington University, becomes obsessed while teaching his course on American Terrorism. Explaining the bombing of an IRS Building, he tells his students, "The Feds did this huge investigation, but the investigation didn't satisfy me.