Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Almost phony baloney

 Documentaries about 9/11 and the Bush administration proliferate. So it is not surprising that the release of the non-documentary The Manchurian Candidate, an updated remake of the 1962 political conspiracy thriller, is timed for the year of the presidential election.

 Gulf War veteran Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) realises he was brain washed during the war and goes to find out why and by whom. Up until then he believed Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) rescued him and his team from enemy hijacking during a botched reconnaissance mission. Shaw is later decorated a national war hero and is propelled to a vice presidential nomination. His mother Eleanor (Meryl Streep) is behind the scenes orchestrating the rigging of the election for her ambitious ends.

 Extensive use of close ups of the central performers faces leaves a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the actors. Washington’s familiar probing intensity is always engrossing, the best he has been for years, and is able to express facial power to communicate more visceral nuance than the repetitious dialogue he speaks. His lips contort magnificently in one scene when he believably describes to a young woman he had met on a train what it’s like to find out you have been manipulated. There is always a sense in Marco that he is breaking down while surviving. 

 Flashback scenes of the brainwashing technique include a shot of the whole brain presented before the camera, and insertions of computer chips into temples as relayed through a monitor, are blatant and obvious reminders of what is being conveyed here.

 The stand out orchestration is so unrestrained as to be farcical, and Streep brilliantly conveys her caractiture with some deliberate corny one-liners which she gets away with.

 The almost incestuous relationship between Shaw and Streep’s Eleanor as the mother and son electioneering team goes so far from just appearing unhealthy. It comes as no surprise, however, if you had been paying attention. Shades of psychoanalysis abound. Is it any coincidence that Shaw is a vice presidential nominee?  

 Director Johnathan Demme is no stranger to boldly telling you what is on his and other’s minds. His Philadelphia sympathetically brought AIDS and homosexuals to the mainstream. After Silence of the Lambs his films have that socially significant ring to them. Candidate crudely shapes sentiments about capital greed linked to political power with an unabashed staginess.

 For all of Candidate’s bleeding heart it is one-dimensional and contrived. The point is made clearly but the movie does not fire. Marco’s investigation into the conspiracy is a matter of formality than intrigue and is too neat and tidy to believe. What appears to be a self importance in the telling is left open to careless plotting. The thought provoking and powerful original version achieved through subtlety what this does not do.