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The Manchurian Candidate is brilliantly acted and reimagined with a new enemy: evil corporation instead of evil communism.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published July 29, 2004

[Paramount Pictures]

Denzel Washington, as Ben Marco, is haunted by wartime memories that set him on a collision course with one of his former soldiers who may become the next vice president.

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Nobody should remake a classic film, so Jonathan Demme didn't. Instead, he reimagined The Manchurian Candidate, going beyond updating John Frankenheimer's 1962 political thriller to add credibility and intensity that the first version, as a dark satire in more innocent times, couldn't possess.

The backdrop war zone is now Kuwait in 1992, not Korea. The brainwashing inflicted upon a platoon of U.S. soldiers isn't the work of Communists but the corporate treachery that is a more present danger today. Those are the required dramatic facelifts for a dated plot. But Demme grasps the suspenseful implications of Richard Condon's novel, peeling away the Cold War references and giving today's audiences something that can make them shudder.

Using a tantalizingly complex screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris, Demme fashions a top-notch thriller that only occasionally feels forced. He approaches the material with the style that marked his Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs: Directly addressing the camera, actors expose more apprehension, then abrupt bursts of something approaching, but not always becoming, violence. Little is padded. Nothing is soft. Everything counts.

Denzel Washington plays Maj. Ben Marco, a role that is shaped more disturbingly than Frank Sinatra's take in the original. Like other members of his Gulf War unit, Ben is haunted by nightmares of an Iraqi ambush and vaguely sinister memories afterward. Another soldier, Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), walked away with a Medal of Honor and a political career. Soon, he may be vice president.

That's a switch from the original story casting Raymond as a programmed assassin. It also adds a different, more logical meaning to Condon's title. Raymond's possible ascent to the White House is watched closely by nameless agents of Manchuria Corp., protecting its greedy agenda. The link is Raymond's mother, Sen. Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep in Oscar mode), another variation on Angela Lansbury's manipulative mom in the first film. Eleanor is hell-bent on seeing her son elected, and it may not be entirely for family pride.

Ben's growing paranoia and Raymond's career collide, with the men alternately combative and compassionate. Schreiber's performance echoes the near-dainty vulnerability of the late Laurence Harvey in the original, but he also projects submerged danger that Harvey lacked, a trait that comes in handy as the plot thickens.

As Ben, Washington's performance is remarkably calibrated. The two-time Academy Award winner has seldom appeared so downbeat, confused and emotionally exposed. It's a smart example of an established screen persona setting up the audience, making Ben's predicament more engrossing because, hey, that guy on the screen doesn't usually hurt like this. Washington's display of fatigued, fading heroism is among his best work.

Purists will cluck about some of Demme's maneuvers, such as Eleanor's last-minute railroading of Raymond onto the party ticket, in an era when nominations are locked up well in advance. Or the brainwashing itself, more science fiction than before, but more appropriate for the film's mood than the ladies garden club members that Frankenheimer made his soldiers perceive. The only update that doesn't feel right is Kimberly Elise turning Janet Leigh's Rosie into a more aggressive force. But that's the fault of the writers, not the actor. And I wish Demme had squeezed in a queen of hearts reference somewhere.

Tighter editing would help a few passages, but Tak Fujimoto's persistently curious cinematography passes the extra time well. Rachel Portman's musical score is almost subliminally prodding. Every element of The Manchurian Candidate works together - at times too hard - to create an enormously entertaining whodunit, even though we know whodunit before. Demme doesn't erase 42 years of posterity; he shapes some of his own.

GRADE: A-

DIRECTOR: Jonathan Demme

CAST: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Kimberly Elise, Jon Voight, Jeffrey Wright, Vera Farmiga

SCREENPLAY: Daniel Pyne, Dean Georgaris, based on the novel by Richard Condon and the 1962 screenplay by George Axelrod

RATING: R; violence, profanity, brief sensuality

RUNNING TIME: 130 min.

[Last modified July 28, 2004, 10:28:14]