Denzel
Washington shines in Jonathan Demme's modern
remake of the 1962 classic "The Manchurian
Candidate." •
Photo by Ken Regan - © 2004 Paramount
Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
When
psychological, schizophrenic, paranoid films
attack
By
Scott Baldwin
Online Forty-Niner
In
a time in Hollywood where the only kind
of mystery/thriller is one with multiple
twists and turns and is filled with inexplicable
coincidences ("Out of Time" and
"Taking Lives" most recently come
to mind), "The Manchurian Candidate"
offers a refreshing spin to keep us wondering
instead of guessing.
Denzel
Washington plays U.S. Major Bennett Marco
who served in the Gulf War alongside Sergeant
Raymond Shaw, who is played by Liev Schreiber.
Fast
forward to present day and Shaw is a junior
senator who was awarded the Medal of Honor
for his heroism in fighting off an enemy
attack single-handedly while his comrades
were either down or killed. Shaw is also
now running on his party's ticket as vice
president with a little help from his mother
(Meryl Streep) and her hardheaded encouragement.
Marco
appears to be as normal as can be in the
very beginning, and we find him speaking
with a group of Boy Scouts about his experiences
in the Gulf War.
He
soon runs into Sergeant Al Melvin who served
in the Gulf War with him. Al acts like an
escaped mental patient, describing his bizarre
and unsettling dreams of that night in Kuwait
and how it just does not add up. Washington's
Marco tries to calm him and tells him to
go seek help after looking at the sergeant's
folder full of satanic drawings and doodles
that are supposed to be images of his dreams.
Despite
Marco's seemingly normal life, he appears
to be utterly obsessed with former comrade
and brother-in-arms Raymond Shaw.
If
the trailers weren't a dead giveaway and
if you have seen the original film starring
Frank Sinatra, it's obvious that somebody
brainwashed Marco and his sergeants, for
what seems to be the purpose of putting
a sleeper in the oval office in the form
of Shaw.
True,
Shaw is running as vice-president, but knocking
off a president can't be too hard these
days, can it? The only question is who will
be the person to do this and more importantly,
why, which I appreciated. You never know
the true motive until the end.
There
were many compelling things about this movie.
Most impressive was probably the fact that
while "The Manchurian Candidate"
is a movie about politics, recent blockbuster
"The Day After Tomorrow" had more
of a political statement. In fact, the audience
is never even told which party Shaw belongs
to. Also, it is hard for me to like a movie
that has very little humor, but I must give
credit where it is due.
One
thing I didn't particularly care for was
Denzel's character; not necessarily the
way he acted, but the way Marco was portrayed.
The only thing we really know about the
guy is that he has a problem. This small
criticism is not a real detraction from
the movie; rather, I just thought his character
could have been developed a little more.
To
sum up, this was an extremely watchable
movie that nobody should be walking out
on. The one thing I'll always remember is
the line where Marco's scientist buddy says,
"You may still be back in Kuwait for
all you know," and I prayed that wasn't
the ultimate twist in the movie.
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