The Manchurian Candidate Review

by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)
August 21st, 2004

The Manchurian Candidate
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
August 18, 2004

My Tagline---Extra ham, extra cheese, hold the respect

Who ordered the unnecessary remake? Extra ham, extra cheese, hold the respect for a classic. Okay, I'm just one more critic shouting, "Come up with new ideas, Hollywood". It doesn't have to be that way, though. A better idea would be to remake mediocre old movies like 'The Most Dangerous Game' or 'The Old Man And The Sea' before futzing with the great ones. Jonathan Demme's modern edition of 'The Manchurian Candidate' veers way off the course set by John Frankenheimer in his 1962 paranoid gem. There are many differences, but I don't know if there's a single improvement. And if you're not going to fix what they did wrong the first time---while foolishly cutting out the scenes everyone remembers---why remake it in the first place?

Senator Joseph McCarthy's communist slandering had taken place about a decade prior to the 1962 film. Richard Condon's book brilliantly toyed with all that paranoia. He came up with the idea that the bad guys would capture an American platoon during the Korean War and brainwash them. It was not only fascinating...it was frightening. Trained American killers, under communist command, killing other Americans? Eek. And what if the leaders of this subversion were prominent Yanks? By golly, what if the woman in charge of it all was married to the McCarthy character and her son was the key figure in the conspiracy? It's far-fetched and ripe for satire, but most good stories are...especially if they take themselves seriously. Even though a lot is at stake, the '04 characters are too serious.

Minus the buffoonish McCarthy stand-in, Demme's flick stays with that basic outline. The Gulf War is now the conflict de jeur and Denzel Washington (Major Marco), Meryl Streep (Mrs. Shaw), and Liev Schreiber (Raymond Shaw) fill in for Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin in the original), and Laurence Harvey. The title is more literal in this version. Raymond is a congressman and vice presidential candidate, bought and paid for a fictional corporation known as Manchurian Global. We all know how vast a corporation can get and they certainly seem to be able to buy politicians. [If you didn't know that, this movie will punch the point so far into your brain that you'll run screaming from the next corporate logo you see.] While Raymond is fast-tracking through the political ranks, Marco is losing his marbles, suspecting he's been implanted with a controlling microchip.
Marco and the survivors from his platoon are having terrible dreams. One of those soldiers is creepy Jeffrey Wright, who's dead before the end of my first nap. The tortured men remember snippets of what happened to them during the war. Raymond is the supposed war hero, credited with saving his mates from certain death. He feels something's just not right and he's not a happy candidate. His smother...uh, MOTHER is determined to get him the VP slot over the more deserving veteran Senator Jordan (Jon Voight). On the romantic front, Raymond had a past relationship with Jordan's daughter (a key point in '62, mostly irrelevant in '04) while Marco has met a helpful woman (Kimberly Elise) who seems to fall for him all too easily. Oh, the other romantic issue is that Mrs. Shaw seems to lust after her own son. She'll do whatever she has to do to manipulate her way to the top, even using Raymond to murder anyone who opposes her.

What worked so wonderfully in Frankenheimer's picture is completely absent in Demme's. Rushing to get a cut of the brainwashing scenes edited for a Sinatra screening, the late director and his editor (Ferris Webster) concocted a brilliant visual trick of intercutting the communist's villainous activities with a dainty garden party. The soldiers are convinced they're sitting casually with a roomful of gentle ladies. That's the most famous sequence from the old film and no semblance of it is even in this one. I suppose they didn't want to try to crib so blatantly from the inspiration. Without it, Demme's version is about the agony of mental torture and not about the ease with which these strong-willed men are manipulated. There's nothing eerie about it this time.

Another big no-show is solitaire. Previously, Raymond would blank out whenever someone suggested he "pass the time by playing a game of solitaire". He'd play, then see the queen of diamonds and be ready for whatever they wanted him to do. This trigger was never more sinister than when his mother eventually used it. The trigger for each of the modern soldiers is simpler. I won't give it away, but trust me---it's not very intriguing.

The other major change is to drop Johnny Iselin (the McCarthy-esque dullard) and all the subtext associated with him. Maybe Demme didn't want a character of great stupidity dominated by the real pants-wearer in his movie. The relationship between Raymond's mother and stepfather in '62 is biting and funny, but maybe they didn't need it this time anyway. After all, if the absent Iselin were to represent Dubya and Streep represents Cheney, well, that would just be catering TOO much to George Bush Junior's opponents. Truly, the satire in this movie is not far removed from Michael Moore's polemcial 'Fahrenheit 9/11'. Subtlety, thy name is not Manchurian.

One story point that still works is the zombie-like response to the trigger phrase. It's still a chilling (even funny) idea to make strong, intelligent soldiers turn into stonefaced machines when a higher-up blurts out a few key words. A friend of mine would argue that the brainwashing is already done once a soldier agrees to become a soldier, which is probably one point Condon's book was making in the first place. Nevertheless, it's alarming when a walking gun is turned on his fellow countrymen, especially when it's only happening to get more money and power for the rich decision-makers.
The performances are all over the map. Streep is in fine form...if she's decided that giving a shrill, harpy performance is the new style for her. I bet she had fun eating her way through her overplayed scenes, but my laughter during her "dramatic" speeches was only hushed by my yawns. If the movie wasn't acting as a sleeping pill, I might be a better judge of whether or not Meryl Streep gives the worst performance of her life. Of course, because the voters love her, she'll get nominated for an Academy Award (as was Lansbury, deservedly) and I'll have to boo & hiss when this living legend walks down the red carpet next winter. Lansbury was angry about this remake and I can see why. Her character---one of the all-time great villains---is reduced to a ham & cheese sandwich.

Schreiber doesn't find the tragic centre for Raymond Shaw that Laurence Harvey did. You're supposed to feel great sympathy for the pawn that Raymond has become in his own life. Harvey was cold, yet sympathetic. Schreiber doesn't play the same shades. He's never likable or particularly sympathetic. That's a recurring issue in the film too. Nobody likes this cold fish, but part of the conditioning is that the soldiers will automatically say he's a warm & wonderful person. Schreiber just isn't very tragic playing this Hamlet character, though, so he's not very compelling or sympathetic.

Denzel Washington is the headliner here and he has the most screen time. This is not the Major Marco that Sinatra played. Blue Eyes was a tough SOB and the one rock-solid character we could latch onto in the '62 version. Washington is insane (justifiably, but certifiably) and this film belongs to him all the way. [With 'Man On Fire' and 'The Manchurian Candidate', Denzel has lost his dignified edge and gone a little bonkers this year. Good for him.] When he starts to piece together what's really going on in his head, no one will believe his ramblings and he runs himself ragged trying to prove...something. Washington grounds these scenes the best he can, but think of this---if we weren't privy to the same details that he has, wouldn't we also think he's a paranoid maniac and want him locked up?
The major players are still there for the shoot-em-up climax, but the deck has been shuffled in some neat ways. Unfortunately, it takes Demme 4 days to make his point about who wants who to do what to whom. I was just starting to feel some of the tension because this was a smart departure from the climax of the original. Then it dragged & dragged and Hollywood got in the way with a tacked-on happy ending. This should not have any sort of happy ending. Roger Ebert made a great point about Sinatra's potential to be a programmed assassin. The same secondary character in Marco's life has a more key role now, so that sinister final twist is wasted.

I guess I'm just irritated that writers Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris didn't write a scene where someone calls Raymond what he is---a motherfucker. For once, that word would mean something. He IS one, after all. Am I the only one who thinks that's a funny line to use for a story of such Oedipal complexity? George Alexrod's adapted screenplay of the Condon book probably would have wrote something like that if '60s censors didn't hang over filmmakers even more than they do now. The '04 film is too stiff for such fiendish fun. Did they really have to take treason and murder so seriously?

Frankenheimer was an inconsistent director---capable of greatness and crappiness, depending on the wind patterns---but the themes in his film have hardly aged in 42 years. The "good heavens, corporations are actually buying the White House!" themes in Demme's picture will be aged by Election Day this November. Either the nightmarish King Bush II presidency will be over...or he'll win again (or for the first time, depending on how you look at it) and he will get his attack dogs to roast anybody who'd make a movie like this. Hey, I'm on-board with the politics in 'The Manchurian Candidate', but is no one capable of a sly satire these days? This type of film needs a careful touch, not overbearing broad strokes. I'll continue to treasure the 1962 DVD and brainwash myself into forgetting I ever saw this ham-fisted retread.

To brainwash me, write to [email protected]
Or you can just brainwash everyone reading my website at
http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend

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