Historical references in the film include Jean-Paul Marat (from the French Revolution), Kim Jong-Il, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Augusto Pinochet, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, François Duvalier, Rudolf Hess, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Lyndon B. Johnson, Julius Caesar (from William Shakespeare's play), Robert Mugabe, Ngo Dinh Diem, Idi Amin, the PIRA Maze prison protests, U.S. POWs in Vietnam, the Weathermen terrorist group, the Khmer Rouge, the 1979 Revolution in Iran, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution in that country.