Actually, while I have yet to see the movie, based on a synopsis indicating that it starts with a moment of road rage on a classically snarled-up LA freeway, I would think that the Los Angeles 2024 Olympic and Paralympic bid team may feel that some details of the screenplay could have been improved.

Even under the new bid process, there is no section of the candidature file for zeitgeist.

Yet you would be hard-pressed to argue that this intangible has not at times come into play in past Olympic contests.

London’s campaign from 2003 to 2005 coincided with a period when the UK capital had somehow mystifyingly managed to rebrand itself among the youth of the world as a super-cool melting pot – not that this seemed at the time to have been decisive in giving it the edge over Paris and the others.

There was also a sense in 2009 that, yes, this was the moment for a young, thrusting nation like Brazil - though of course the many shortcomings of the 2016 Games would subsequently highlight the rather obvious pitfall with allowing zeitgeist to dictate where you stage an event that does not actually take place until seven years later.

Though there are only three candidates, there are still so many imponderables in this 2024 race with a bit less than eight months to go, not least the question of whether the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will allow it to proceed to a conclusion in the usual, orthodox manner.

I tried to deal with the pros and cons of awarding two Summer Games – 2024 and 2028 - at once in a recent column. So, let us assume for the purposes of this one that, in spite of all the rumours, we do end up with a straight fight to the wire between the three current candidates, and only one winner.

In the normal run of things, you would have to conclude that what we have here is two heavyweights (Los Angeles and Paris) and a middleweight (Budapest), albeit a middleweight whose extensive Olympic heritage and imaginative approach suggest it could be a László Papp in this contest.

What might interfere with that assessment? In a word, politics.

Simply because the United States is the most powerful country in the world, decisions taken by its new President Donald Trump, an unpredictable, maverick politician if ever there was one, might sway votes, even in a contest that is ostensibly about urban amenities and sports venues.

This would be a particular risk for LA if, by September, say, tensions with one region of the world or another had escalated, or certain sections of society, for example women, felt overwhelmingly negative about the Trump Presidency’s perceived intentions and/or policy agenda.

Look at China. You would not say as things stand today that it looks beyond the bounds of possibility that issues to do with trade, or even US relations with Russia, might lead by September to a significant deterioration in diplomatic relations.

Well China has three IOC members, and I am afraid I am cynical enough to surmise that they are all likely to vote the same way at the all-important IOC Session in Lima.

In a contest with an electorate of between 80 and 90, three votes matter.

Politics could also be a big problem for Paris, should the Front National, in the shape of Marine Le Pen, win the French Presidency in upcoming elections.

Even though, once again, the occupant of the Elysée has no bearing on, say, the ease of travel between prospective Olympic venues, one would think that a head of state from the extreme right of the political spectrum would be viewed as enough of a negative to erode Paris’s support in this 2024 race very considerably. Think of the effect on the Olympic brand.

One hesitates to be too dogmatic given the results of big plebiscites in 2016, but this nightmare scenario for Paris 2024 probably will not happen.

Le Pen is second-favourite with the bookies, but the structure of the election enables supporters of other candidates, right and left, to gang up against her in the run-off, scheduled for May 7.

She has a much better chance, though, of winning the first round, which could, in itself, give bid leaders a tense and awkward couple of weeks.

The likeliest winner of the Presidency at this point is François Fillon, from the centre-right, who is odds-on favourite, albeit not prohibitively so.

If it is him who travels to Lima, this would not be at all a problem for the Paris bid, though he would be hoping for a better outcome than on his last appearance on the Olympic stump, as French Prime Minister in the South African city of Durban in 2011.

This was in support of Annecy in another three-horse race – the contest for the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The French city amassed just seven of the 95 votes cast, as South Korea’s Pyeongchang sprinted to victory.

The other thing that would make the job of the Paris bid team markedly more difficult is another terrorist attack – not that its rivals are themselves immune from this modern-day plague.

Desperately sorry as one might feel for victims and cities hit by such assaults, the IOC has to be hard-headed about these matters.

A terrorist outrage at the Games would be one of the worst catastrophes that could befall them.

The IOC must have extreme confidence in the security provisions of any city it designates as Summer Olympic host.

While it is probably fair to say that Budapest is not generally regarded as as strong a contender as its rivals, I see no reason why it should not be seen as solid enough for the IOC to be comfortable about going to Hungary in the unlikely event that political or other considerations render both of the frontrunners unappealing.

This probably will not happen; it is much more likely that the respective political leaders of the US and France will have only a marginal impact on this 2024 race –although we waifs and strays of the Olympic bubble may face an eventful few days if Trump and First Lady Melania, whose home town, remember, is less than 500 km from Budapest, pitch up in Peru.

And what then if we do get all the way to the vote with two exceptionally strong candidates and one good enough to set a marker for future contests, but not quite on the same level?

Well, the dynamic of the three-horse race is relatively simple to sketch: unless Budapest’s vote is tiny, the two frontrunners are likely to be closely enough matched for the ultimate winner to be determined by the second preference votes of first-round supporters of the Hungarian capital.

Certainly, if I were working for Paris or LA, I would now be doing everything possible to court those I thought might plump for Budapest in round one – not forgetting Hungarian IOC members Pál Schmitt and Daniel Gyurta, who would be able to join in the vote in round two if Budapest were eliminated.

Having pencilled in a list of those IOC members I personally would put in the Budapest-first category, I think that approximately two-thirds of them would be likely to switch to Paris in a second round.

That means Los Angeles needs to be in front in round one to retain a good chance of winning.

With somewhere in the low 40s of votes likely to be needed for victory, however, if Budapest polled fewer than 10, it could pave the way for one of the heavyweights to land a first-round knockout, as in Durban.

Where the Academy leads, will the IOC follow? Maybe so, but at this stage the script is still in production.