![]() ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, it would seem, is once again very much a film of its own times, leaving viewers – for the second time – with the unnerving sense that its events are at the same time absurdly impossible and all too plausible. ![]() Where the original presented its often unhinged events in austere monochrome, Demme introduces an MTV-styled hyperreality, in which Marco’s experiences are cut at a frenetic pace and punctuated by the almost constant intrusion of media chatter. The rat-smelling protagonist Major Ben Marco, originally played by Frank Sinatra, can now, in a post-Civil Rights era, be a black man (the ever excellent Denzel Washington) his platoon went missing not in the Korean conflict but in the lead-up to the first Gulf War Pavlovian brainwashing has given way to neural implants this time the murderous puppet Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) is also a vice presidential candidate, while his over-affectionate mother (played by power-dressing, power-acting Meryl Streep as a right-winged Hilary Clinton) does not merely manipulate from the wings but is now herself an influential senator and the sinister group behind the plot is not a Chinese communist cadre but a multinational corporation called Manchurian Global (clearly modelled on Halliburton and the Carlyle Group). Writers Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris have remained faithful for the most part to the plot dynamics of the original, while bringing its political and cultural references right up to date. Yet for all this, Demme’s new version of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ is one of the best and most intelligent film remakes in years. Any attempt to remake a film so firmly rooted in its own times would seem doomed to failure from the start – and if The Truth About Charlie (2002), the recent, undistinguished retread of ‘Charade’ (1963), is anything to judge by, Jonathan Demme is hardly the ideal director to bring 1960s classics into the twenty first century. Released during the Cuban Missile crisis when Cold War paranoia was at its peak, and withdrawn from circulation a year later when the all too real assassination of President JFK proved too close to the film’s fictional premise for comfort, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ tapped so deeply into the anxieties and hysteria of early sixties America that it was not deemed safe for re-release there until a full quarter century later. It's imperfect, but Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate has a lot to offer in terms of excitement and entertainment, and that's more than enough to make it a worthwhile movie to watch.John Frankenheimer’s ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (1962), based on Richard Condon’s 1959 novel of the same name, was a bleak, hallucinatory conspiracy thriller about a soldier who returns a decorated hero from the Korean War, but has in fact been brainwashed to become a sleeper assassin at the heart of the American political system. The story becomes a little muddled in the ending, but everything leading up to it is thrilling and very enjoyable. Schreiber is also great as a young senator and Gulf War veteran who is mind-controlled as part of a far-reaching political conspiracy. Meryl Streep gives a fantastic performance as Liev Schreiber's sinister, conspiring mother and the primary antagonist of the movie. It's sort of a political thriller sprinkled with just enough creepiness and mystery to make it consistently interesting. I haven't seen the original, but I was impressed by just how exciting and entertaining this remake is. ![]() It is, of course, a remake of the 1960s thriller of the same name starring Frank Sinatra. An above-average psychological thriller with some great performances, The Manchurian Candidate delivers its fair share of creepy moments before ending a little unremarkably. ![]()
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