Movie Review: The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate

It's embarrassing to admit, so let's get it over with: I've never seen the original 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate. So if you're looking here for insightful comparisons between the original and the remake, you won't find them.On the other hand, because I'm not "burdened" by having experienced the viewing of an acknowledged classic, I'm able to talk about this new version entirely on its own merits. The result? The Manchurian Candidate is okay, but it doesn't get my unqualified vote.

Although (as the credits say) The Manchurian Candidate is based on an earlier movie that was based on a book, there are some differences in the remake that even I've been made painfully aware of. For example, Denzel Washington is black while Frank Sinatra - who originated the role of Major Ben Marco - was a white man. That particular difference is, of course, neither here nor there. An understandable change (I suppose), but one which I liked much less, is that "Manchurian" originally referenced "Manchuria" as in "China." Now, apparently because Communism is largely dead as a movie threat, "Manchurian" is, instead, the name of a money-grubbing international corporation. And frankly, I'm not sure I buy corporations as being the largest threat to liberties. But I digress...

According to the storyline of The Manchurian Candidate, Captain (now Major) Ben Marco and his men fought bravely in Kuwait during the first Gulf War (the first movie featured Korean War vets, another change that merely modernizes the plot without substantially changing it). While on patrol in Iraq, Marco's team is ambushed. Two American soldiers died as a result and, after Marco is rendered unconscious, his unit Sergeant, Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), single-handedly fights off the enemy and then leads the men across the desert sands to safety. Marco is the first to acknowledge Shaw's herosim, and recommends him for the coveted Medal of Honor accordingly. But although Marco and Shaw remember the pitched battle and the results, they and the other survivors are having nightmares that paint a very different picture of what might have happened that awful night.

As a result of his nightmares, strress, and sleeplessness, Marco has been diagnosed by Army psychiatrists as suffering from Gulf War Syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. Shaw, on the other hand, has managed to function quite well in the civilian world and, after leaving the Army, has become a New York Congressman. He's following in the steps of his politically powerful family by doing so, most notably in the immediate shadow of his mother, Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep), a powerful senator from the same state. As the presidential election season unfolds, Senator Shaw lobbies ceaselessly for her handsome up-and-coming son to be the party's candidate for Vice President, and she will quite literally stop at no political machination to get her way. Raymond, who likes the party's first choice of Senator Thomas Jordan (John Voight) just fine, is reluctant to go along with his mother's crusade. Eventually, though, he's convinced that he'll accept the nomination if it's offered.

In the meantime, even as Marco follows his former Sergeant's political progress, he tries to talk with Shaw and to find out if he, too, suffers from bad dreams. Another former soldier, Melvin (Jeffrey Wright) finds Marco and shows him the notebooks he's kept of his own nightmares, which further feeds Marco's paranoia. Shaw thinks his former commander is crazy, but tries to stay respectful for a man who's clearly lost much in the service of his country; even his Army bosses are relatively patient with his rantings. But it's not until he joins forces with a pretty supermarket check-out clerk (yes, really) that Marco begins to appreciate just how important his crusade could be.

The timing, of course, for the release of The Manchurian Candidate couldn't be better. In this presidential election year, it's almost a relief to see backdoor backstabbing and melodramatic machinations exposed onscreen where we can all see them and marvel at just how dirty the "game" has become. Denzel Washington is good as the honorable Major Marco, but I don't buy the character as portrayed as a former special forces and special ops man. Washington is almost desperate; a real special forces man would be more likely to be both very angry and more determined than ever. Whether this is Washington, however, or Director Jonathan Demme's take, is impossible to tell. John Voight carries himself well as a senior senator, and Liev Schreiber is quite believable as a politician quietly having some doubts of his own once the spotlight is elsewhere (though the script makes Schreiber's confusion less real than surreal). Simon McBurney (Dr. Atticus Noyle) is also completely frightening as one of the most amoral characters to ever appear onscreen. But it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that Meryl Streep stands head and shoulders above all of her fellows in the acting category here. As an added note, despite her consistent denials that she based her performance on a certain other female senator from New York, it's almost certain that those denials are a matter of form rather than fact. The resemblence to Senator Clinton is unmistakable and impossible to ignore.

I personally consider the editing to be a bit problematic, particularly at the beginning of the film where it's far more confusing than need be. I also wasn't overly fond of the script in a number of areas. For example, Shaw's doubts vacillated too far and too quickly, and most of it was narrated via lines the character spoke (apparently in case we still didn't "get it"). I suspect there were also a few connecting scenes edited out, too, since some things were glossed over far too quickly for the import they had, and a few were apparently skipped all together. As a whole, the editing was good, and the direction even more so. The story itself is still a good one, and it moved along quite nicely though without some of the suspense it likely should have had. The bottom line for me is that The Manchurian Candidate is okay. I'm glad I saw it. But I'm going to rent the original now.

POLITICAL NOTES: Let's skip over the blindingly obvious similarities and differences between presidental campaigns in the real world and in Hollywood, and go right to the salient point: A "sleeper" candidate, controlled by other entities. In the original, the troops were hypnotized by the Chinese to follow commands. In this updated version, an electronic chip in the brain does the dirty work (that's no spoiler, folks, it's in the trailers). Frankly, if the enemy hadn't been Manchurian Global and was, instead, some obscure branch of the federal government, I just might have bought into the whole idea - and with a good deal of paranoia of my own. Don't think so? Think again. News in just the past month has talked of implantable chips (ready to go) to "cure" mental illness by stimulating certain parts of the brain. The Manchurian Candidate could have implications on more levels than some of us would like to think.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: The Manchurian Candidate is rated R for "violence and some language." Perhaps much more a determining factor than either violence or language is complexity. This is a grown-up movie in many senses, and will do nothing for youngsters but confuse them while it bores them. But for the intelligent teenager and the interested adult, The Manchurian Candidate will, at the very least, prove diverting.