No, not realistic at all. Just dumb, like those Mission Impossible episodes of the '60's in which the enemy is something called the Central European Socialist Republic.
At one point, they mention that Colorado is the most prosperous state.
Then the government passes a law to make all the poorer surrounding states equal, which would logically require making all states that border on a neighboring state equal. How could any law make every state in the country equal? Equal in what? Could they pass a law declaring that by law Delaware would have as much oil as Oklahoma?
At another point, the surrounding states pass laws forbidding the John Galt Line from entering any of the five surrounding states. if you look at a map of Colorado it is rather difficult to see exactly where the line was going that it crossed into all the five surrounding states. And there is some national agency called the State Science Something that prohibits the use of Reardon Metal. The government in the film is more like that of some wacko Science Fiction movie than reality.
You can make up convincing lies and unconvincing one. the plot of this film (and Atlas Shrugged itself) is of the unconvincing sort. Ayn Rand did not understand this country.
As I pointed out earlier, she preached the glories of capitalism but never invested in anything but a savings bank passbook. When she got cancer from smoking those special cigarettes with the dollar sign on them, she signed up for Medicare under the name Mrs Frank O'Connor, and the taxpayers paid to cure her.'
Just watch the thing yourself. The director deserves credit for a professional job at making it a high quality production with regard to sound, visuals, set and wardrobe. the acting is pretty good as well. It was the novel itself, which is hopelessly dated that is the major problem.
This is Part One, so John Galt does not even show his face. It will be interesting to see how they handle John Galt's 'immensely long speech. It would be harder than putting a Bollywood dance number in the middle of Casablanca. But I don't know that Part Two will ever be made. I don't think Part I make a lot of money, and they may have to wait for DVD's to pay for the second part.