According to Joe Eszterhas's book, Hollywood Animal, Eszterhas wrote the screenplay for Music Box almost ten years before learning, at age 45, that his father, Count István Esterházy, had concealed his wartime involvement in Hungary's Fascist and militantly racist Arrow Cross Party.

Hungarian immigrant Michael J. Laszlo faces a trial and having his US citizenship revoked after being accused of war crimes during WWII.

Prosecuting attorney Jack Burke of the Office of Special Investigations claims that the supposedly upstanding and affable family man, Laszlo, is "Mishka," the former commander of an Arrow Cross death squad.

During the Siege of Budapest, Mishka's unit sadistically tortured, raped, and murdered scores of Hungarian Jews, Roma, and their Gentile protectors.

Ann locates a Soviet defector who testifies about the KGB's program of flawlessly forging documents to frame anti-Communists in the West.

This revelation, combined with Ann's questioning the reliability of witnesses still living under a police state, throws Burke's case into serious doubt.

The infirm witness is unable to leave Budapest, so Ann, Burke, and Judge Irwin Silver travel to Hungary.

In Budapest a mysterious man claiming to be Laszlo's friend visits Ann at her hotel and leaves her a folder of documents.

A dejected Burke says that, while it is too late to save the victims, it is important to remember what happened to them, and claims Ann is denying the truth.

As Ann is driven back to her hotel, the taxi crosses the Széchenyi Lánchíd bridge, where Mishka's executions took place.

Before leaving, Ann notices a photo of young Tibor with a characteristic scar on his left face; she realises he was Mischka's Arrow Cross partner in the atrocities that the witnesses described.

I did do some research into the character's Hungarian background and I read a lot of books about the Holocaust but ultimately I relied on my own imagination.

"[5] Principal photography for the film started on location in Chicago, then moved to Budapest, Hungary, as Gavras wanted authenticity in some of the key Hungarian scenes.

Foremost was his frustration that little attempt was made to understand Mike Laszlo, and that "the old man, who should be the central character if this movie took itself seriously, is only a pawn.

"[6] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was even more critical of the film, doubting it existed for any purpose other than to get Jessica Lange an Oscar nomination, bluntly stating "real-life tragedy has been used to hype cheap melodrama.