The Manchurian Candidate

The running man: Denzel shines in a taut, tense remake of The Manchurian Candidate

By Jeannette Catsoulis

There's a reason Denzel Washington's worried face dominates the posters for the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. More than any other actor, Washington has become a symbol of lone justice, a reluctant vigilante pushed to the brink by a corruption that threatens us all. In films like John Q and Man on Fire (both forgettable except for Washington's heartfelt performances), he took a stand, fought back and in so doing became the personification of last-straw integrity.

It was therefore very smart of director Jonathan Demme to cast Washington in the role previously inhabited by Frank Sinatra in John Frankenheimer's 1962 original, that of troubled Army Major Bennett Marco. The Manchurian Candidate is a film so immersed in paranoia that we need at least one guy we can trust, someone with no side and no hidden agenda; and Washington, with his broad, honest face and earnest single-mindedness, repeatedly reminds the audience of the story's essential human relevance. Without him, the film would lose hope.

Thirteen years after his platoon was ambushed in the Kuwaiti desert, Marco spends his days giving inspirational talks to schoolchildren about the heroic behavior of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), awarded the Medal of Honor for saving his platoon. At night, though, Marco haunts his messy, paper-strewn apartment, chewing No-Doz and watching the news--anything to avoid the recurring, brutal nightmares suggesting that Shaw may not be a war hero at all but a torturer and murderer. When Marco learns that other members of his platoon are also having these dreams, he decides to investigate, but is dismissed as a crazy with Gulf War Syndrome. But when he manages to meet with Shaw, now a vice presidential candidate trading on his war record, Marco uncovers something even more horrific than his dreams suggest.

The original Candidate was barely released before the Kennedy assassination caused it to be yanked from circulation until 1988 (some say by Kennedy pal Sinatra himself, who had purchased the rights to the film). Though fans of the original may chafe at aspects of the new movie--particularly the altered ending, clearly shot to give the filmmakers more than one option--the new Candidate is a tight, exciting political thriller in its own right. Both more literal and more specific than its predecessor, the movie hurtles forward so smoothly that it feels much shorter than its 135-minute running time. Demme has ingeniously updated the villains, replacing communists with corporations (somewhere, Michael Moore is smiling) while retaining the atmosphere of sinister secrecy. Using severe, head-on closeups, cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (Signs) drags us into the movie's twisted universe where political greed, mind control and genetic tampering vie for plot time.

Rarely have so many great performances graced a single film; but Meryl Streep, playing Shaw's brittle, domineering mother Sen. Eleanor Shaw (in the role that earned Angela Lansbury an Oscar nomination), is superb. A smiling harpy in pearls and gloves, Eleanor is more than manipulative (and, for those of you wondering, still more than a mother), and Streep is certain to receive her own nomination in 2005. Also terrific are Kimberly Elise (John Q) as a supermarket checkout clerk whose interest in Marco blooms rather too quickly, and Schreiber himself, whose normally chilly persona works beautifully to establish a man primed to be, in the words of one character, "The first privately owned and operated VP of the U.S."

From the rousing notes of John Fogerty's "Fortunate Son" (sung by Wyclef Jean)--played over the banter of battle-high soldiers--to the suspenseful political convention ending, The Manchurian Candidate demonstrates Demme's affinity with music and his understanding of the madness of crowds. Watch the Democratic National Convention on TV this week and you'll see he gets it exactly right.