I’ll give credit to the screenwriters for trying to put a new spin on the classic Frank Sinatra version of the Manchurian Candidate, but ultimately the desire to turn this film into more of a scientific intrusion rather than an extreme psychological thriller, as was the original, really doesn’t manage to impress me enough to encourage you to spend your hard earned money to see it in theaters.
Despite the fact this film stars Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep I never found myself totally enthralled and caught up in the paranoid state the main character finds himself in. Slightly departing from the original story The Manchurian Candidate finds U.S. Army Major Bennett Marco (Washington) caught in the middle of sleepless nights as his memories of the heroics of Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Schreiber), who won the Medal of Honor for saving Marco’s crew in Desert Storm [rather than Korea], never seems right with the Major.
His dreams turn sinister as Marco begins to unfold a plot started by the looming Manchurian Global and their ultimate goal of putting a brainwashed corporate stooge in the Presidential seat.
Whereas in the original film our brainwashed tool was expected to assist in putting a sleeper in the White House, this time around he is on his way to the top. Liev Schreiber plays Raymond Shaw, and plays him very well and extremely comparable to the performance Laurence Harvey turned in for the original film.
Denzel turns in a much more power driven performance than the one Sinatra turned in, while Meryl Streep, surprisingly, comes off with a forced portrayal of the evil U.S. senator/mother of Raymond Shaw while baring an extreme resemblance to Hilary Clinton, which is just to evident to ignore, as is the undeniable draw this film could have due to the current state of the world and the attention currently being firmly focused on Presidential races and 9/11 conspiracies, but ultimately the film turns out to be no more interesting than the lackluster trailers that are searching for paranoid action, but come up rather dull.
From an extremely annoying opening title sequence to back-biting and drilling holes in people’s heads this film departs so far from reality as brainwashing turns from a psychological mind controlling formula to a calculated scientific and technologically advanced process that takes up more screen time than it should have. In a film set in present day I expected more attention to be paid to political intrigue than technological advances.
What should be a political thriller at times begins to feel like a sci-fi actioner, short on attention grabbing action and high on the aesthetic needs of director Jonathan Demme. Where the film could have focused on contemporary political themes that would get the audience more involved we are expected to take delight in high-tech gadgetry and depressing apartment decor.
Manchurian Candidate is a decent film that doesn’t really compare to the 1962 original, but could have excelled to great heights if it had spent less time trying to do something different than the first film and really focus on trying to turn the film into more of an updated version of the original with current political themes embedded into the storyline.
