The Unseen Movie Review

The Manchurian Candidate

Yet another remake of a 1960s classic, hot on the heels of Alfie, and following in the tradition of Ocean’s Eleven and The Thomas Crown Affair. The original Manchurian Candidate is an all-time classic of the political thriller genre. Although a flop at the time of its release in 1962, these days it is almost impossible to find a film critic worth their salt who wouldn’t rank it as an incredible movie-making achievement and place John Frankenheimer on the list of all-time great directors because of it. It has also earned a place in the history books – its star, Frank Sinatra (on incredible form) became so convinced that it had inspired the assassination of President Kennedy the year after its release that he was later to buy up the rights to prevent it from being shown lest it inspire more such acts of direct political action.

However, it was very much a film of its time, perfectly locked into the Cold War paranoia of the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and a world where the nukes could have started flying at the drop of a hat. How is it possible that such a film could be remade now, in the post Cold War world?

Well, as with the real world, now that the Communist threat has been removed from the equation, a new enemy had to be found, and that enemy is Arabic. But it isn’t so much the external enemy which is the focus here, but – in a classic Cold War motif – the enemy within.

As with the original, the genius behind this film comes from the confusion of the central character – originally Sinatra’s Bennett Marco, now Denzel Washington’s Ben Marco – as he desperately tries to find out whether his memories of the war are real. Marco’s suspicions about the record of his one-time subordinate – played by Lawrence Harvey in the original, now by Liev Schreiber – make for an unusual plot progression which, for people who haven’t seen the original, will probably be most reminiscent of that other great film about missing memories, Memento.

Naturally, following another war in Iraq and with a Presidential election taking place in the same month as the film’s release, this film is highly topical. The fact it also revolves in part around whether a candidate for the Oval Office (albeit a Vice Presidential rather than Presidential one) truly earned his war-hero status further underscores the point.

Thankfully, however, this is no mere cash-in on the current fascination with the US political scene, and any parallels to recent political slurs are entirely coincidental. Director Jonathan Demme, who is probably best known for The Silence of the Lambs, has managed to get another great performance out of Washington, following their previous collaboration on Philadelphia, and along with his screenwriters has created a fresh, contemporary take on a great film. It’s not quite as good as the original, but it is a lot more relevant to today’s political concerns, and manages to be both engrossing and thought-provoking in equal measure. In short, it’s one of those rare intelligent yet fun Hollywood movies which crops up from time to time, and should be cherished. Go see.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM