I hate remakes. Every time I hear about another movie being made, which is about every other day, I want to start locking up studio executives for crimes against humanity. I get twice as mad when the movie being remade is already a great movie. I'm more forgiving of attempts to remake crap, figuring they have nothing to lose. The new Manchurian Candidate is not going to make me drop my hard line on remakes. It does however prove that their is an exception to every rule.
Jonathon Demme caught me completely off guard here by making a solid thriller that takes its own route with this material, rather than blindly following in the footsteps of the 1962 classic. With the help of screenwriters Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris and a talented cast that includes Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight and Jeffrey Wright, Demme updates the story to make it stand on its own. Gone are communists and the Korean War, replaced by greedy corporations and the Gulf War. The film is riddled with satirical jabs at the current climate where the line between corporation and government seems more than a little fuzzy. This is the sort of movie that anyone can enjoy but the more you get into politics and world affairs, the more you will find to appreciate in this movie.
Denzel Washington plays Bennett Marco, a major in the army who has been suffering nightmares for years. They appeared after he served in the Gulf War and his unit was ambushed in Kuwait. Images of capture, torture and brainwashing haunt his dreams. He starts to wonder if what he thinks happened is what really happened. When another member of that unit tells him of the same exact dreams, Marco decides to track down Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), the sergeant who was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing his unit in that ambush. Shaw is a little hard to reach though. Running for Vice President has that affect on a guy's schedule. Making things even more difficult is Shaw's mother (Meryl Streep), who runs interference and probably a lot more.
I'm deliberately skipping over a lot of plot here. If you know the original, you can easily read between the lines and see the broader plot. The rest of you should avoid learning to much as it will only degrade the experience for you. The script for all this is pretty solid and does a wonderful job of putting a mirror up to the current world, capturing the feel of it perfectly. This is where the movie really manages to stand on its own because this is such a different feel than the original movie. It's not as good a film as the original but it is damn good. The ending is a bit muddled but that only detracts slightly from the overall quality.
Like the original, strong performances from the actors make the whole thing something special. Angela Lansbury always stood out for me. Having grown up with her as Mrs. Fletcher on TV, I was completely unprepared for her work as an evil incestuous, meddling mother with a vicious self serving political agenda. It was brilliant work and a shocking change of pace for her. So Meryl Streep steps into huge shoes playing the same part. She has big feet. Streep doesn't try to mimic Lansbury but takes her own route to this evil schemer. Oh yeah, and that guy in the starring role, Denzel Washington? He's damn good as always. Even better, it's yet another role where he strays from his all too familiar hero mode. Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight also turn in note perfect performances. The whole group is very talented and they seem to feed off of each other, reaching even higher talent levels. I know, I'm gushing but this is some great stuff.
I also want to single out the cinematography of Tak Fujimoto. He has given the film a very unique feel that takes the stories general paranoia and gives it that extra twist to worm under your skin. He picks unnatural angles and setups that make the viewer constantly uneasy. Adding to that unsettled vibe is the score by Rachel Portman and Wyclef Jean.
This isn't the sort of movie that seems natural to the summer. Multiplexes packed to the rafters with overstimulated underdisciplined teens and deliberate carefully layered political thrillers would seem to be uncomfortable matches. But I can't help thinking that Paramount felt the movie would have a lot more impact appearing in the heat of a presidential campaign, rather than later in the year during the more typical season for intelligent adult films. They would be right. So give your teen an extra twenty bucks if they promise to go see The Manchurian Candidate instead of some other dippy summer movie like Catwoman. They might just learn something. Just make sure they keep quiet. I'm going to see this again and I'm not above swatting people talking around me.
- Harry Barber
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