The Manchurian Candidate
2004
***½
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, Jon Voight
This rather successful 21st century remake of the Cold War era classic updates the action from Korea to Iraq, and turns the villain into a faceless global corporation. The core of the story remains the same: one man comes back from the Desert Storm as a decorated war hero, but no one in his platoon actually has a clear memory of what happened during that near-disastrous operation. Although the update may be more plausible as far as the actual brainwashing technique is concerned, it feels like an average conspiracy thriller and cannot reproduce the timing or the poignancy of the original.
