Jonathan Demme's choice of material has been a little
bizarre as of late. His remake of the strangely winsome yet slightly edgy
Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant vehicle Charade into the bland and leaden The
Truth About Charlie was such a full-blown disaster that his choice to
return to the remake well and update John Frankenheimer's chillingly effective
cold-war classic, The Manchurian Candidate, can almost be considered
self-flagellatory.
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It's obvious what drew Demme to the material: the thriller -- which stars Denzel
Washington as a Gulf War vet who uncovers a sinister corporate conspiracy to
control the U.S. government -- is suffused with a disquieting, alarming sense
of paranoia. It creeps you out in much the same way as Demme's 1991
Oscar-winner Silence of the Lambs. But the movie is profoundly flawed in
its attempt to recast the central enemy as a global corporate enterprise, as
well as in its choice to replace good old-fashioned brainwashing techniques
with mind-controlling computer chip implants. The implants create a gaping plot
hole so vast, it pretty much swallows the film's final minutes. Manchurian
Candidate fizzles out like an Alka-Seltzer releasing its last carbonated
bubble -- we never even make it to the middle of our seat, let alone the edge.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
Starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep
Rated R
130 Minutes
Area Theatres
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Thankfully, the film boasts superlative, studied performances by Denzel
Washington, Liev Schreiber, and especially Meryl Streep, who plays an intensely
powerful senator with an unusually strong devotion to her only son. Manchurian
Candidate reminds us yet again of what a natural phenomenon Streep is. In
her hands, even the simple act of chewing ice becomes a character-defining
moment. She is reason enough to overlook this Candidate's otherwise
faulty and inconsistent platform.
