The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)

The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 American neo-noir psychological political thriller film  directed by Jonathan Demme. The film, based on Richard Condon's 1959 novel of the same name and a reworking of the previous 1962 film, stars Denzel Washington as Bennett Marco, a tenacious, virtuous soldier; Liev Schreiber as Raymond Shaw, a U.S. Representative from New York, manipulated into becoming a vice-presidential candidate; Jon Voight as U.S. Senator Tom Jordan, a challenger for vice president; and Meryl Streep as Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, also a U.S. Senator and Raymond's manipulative ruthless mother.

While the name of the novel and the earlier film was retained, the significance of "Manchurian" was changed. In the original, the protagonist was captured in the Korean War and brainwashed by the Chinese army in Manchuria. In the 2004 film, with the Korean War replaced by the Gulf War, Manchurian is instead used as the name of a sinister multinational company.

Plot
Major Bennett Marco (Washington) commanded a U.S. Army unit during the Gulf War in 1991. His unit's member Sergeant First Class Raymond Shaw (Schreiber) was awarded the Medal of Honor for single-handedly engaging the enemy during their ambushed reconnaissance patrol in Kuwait and leading all but two men of the patrol to safety over three days through the desert. Shaw is now a U.S. congressman. His ruthless mother, Virginia Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Streep), uses her influence to secure his nomination as the vice-presidential candidate over the favorite, Senator Tom Jordan. Shaw is aloof and somewhat reserved, but opens up to his mother, although he still resents her role in the break-up of the relationship with his childhood sweetheart Jocelyn, Senator Jordan's daughter, prior to his enlistment.

Al Melvin, one of Marco's former soldiers, tells Marco of his confusing memories and dreams about their ambushed patrol. Though clearly mentally ill, he shows Marco his drawings of images from his dreams. Marco also begins to have dreams about that mission, in which he and the rest of the patrol are captured, tortured and brainwashed.

Marco starts investigating what really happened. He travels to New York City: on the train he meets an outgoing supermarket clerk named Rosie who had already identified him. She offers him a place to stay in New York. While showering at her apartment, Marco feels a small lump on his upper back. He uses a knife to dig at the spot, and pulls out a tiny metallic object from under his skin, but accidentally drops it down the bathroom sink after Rosie, having listened to Marco's subtle sounds of distress, forces her way inside.

Marco confronts Shaw at campaign headquarters, and during their joint lunch, wrestles him down, biting into Shaw's back to remove an implant he suspects to be there. Marco is arrested but is subsequently released when Shaw decides not to press charges. Back at Rosie's apartment Marco recovers Shaw's implant which he had removed and kept hidden in his mouth during his detention. Marco has Shaw's implant analysed by his friend Delp (Bruno Ganz) who surmises that the implant's purpose was storage of emergency medical data, but also recollects that there was a parallel project for various kinds of implantables funded by Manchurian Global, a powerful private equity firm with major political connections, including Senator Eleanor Shaw. After Delp administers electro-convulsive therapy with methohexital to Marco at his request, Marco begins to have clearer recollections that he was brainwashed during the ambushed mission and that he and Shaw were forced to kill the two missing soldiers from his patrol. He begins to suspect that he's under surveillance and finds in Rosie's handbag cassette tapes with a file of information about him. The tapes turn out to contain recordings of his conversations with Rosie.

His research on Manchurian Global in the public library leads him to the name of Dr. Atticus Noyle, the South African geneticist accused of human experimentation on political prisoners during Apartheid and involved in scientific research with novel memory implants for Manchurian Global. He brings his findings to Senator Jordan, who confronts the Shaws with clear connections between Dr. Noyle's work on deep implant behaviour modification under a research grant from Manchurian Global during Desert Storm, Marco and Shaw's patrol missing for three days in the desert, and subsequent dreams and recollections of the patrol's members; he suggests that Shaw withdraw from the campaign. Instead, Eleanor "activates" Shaw and orders him to kill Jordan. Jocelyn is also killed when she tries to stop Shaw.

When Marco confronts Rosie, she reveals she works for the FBI and has been following him undercover. Having found an implant in Melvin, who, like all other members of Shaw and Marco's patrol, died mysteriously, the FBI arranges a meeting between Marco and Shaw to convince them they were brainwashed under an assassination plot, which takes place just as Governor Arthur and Shaw win the White House. Shaw receives a phone call intended for Marco from Eleanor, and by using trigger words, she gives the command to assassinate the President-elect so that Shaw becomes President, and admits that she voluntarily gave him to the brainwashers for the country's benefit; Shaw resists the mind-control techniques, empowered by Jocelyn's death.

At the climactic moment, Shaw deliberately places himself between the entranced Marco and the President-elect. As Rosie rushes through the crowd to find Marco, Shaw looks at the vent where Marco is hiding and nods as a signal to kill him and his mother. Shaw dances with his mother and steers them into the marked position, where Marco kills them both with a single rifle shot. Marco prepares to kill himself, but after seeing Shaw's nod, Rosie arrives and prevents his suicide by wounding him.

The FBI frames a deceased Manchurian Global contractor as the shooter. Manchurian executives watch in defeat as their entire conspiracy is revealed on television. Rosie takes Marco to the remote island compound where he was conditioned. After reflecting on his time there, Marco drops a photo of his Army unit and Shaw's Medal of Honor into the sea.

Cast

 * Denzel Washington as Major Bennett Marco
 * Meryl Streep as Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw
 * Liev Schreiber as Congressman Raymond Prentiss Shaw
 * Jon Voight as Senator Thomas Jordan
 * Kimberly Elise as Eugenie Rosie
 * Vera Farmiga as Jocelyn Jordan
 * Jeffrey Wright as Corporal Al Melvin
 * Simon McBurney as Atticus Noyle
 * Bruno Ganz as Delp
 * Adam LeFevre as Congressman Healy
 * Ann Dowd as Congresswoman Beckett
 * Ted Levine as Lieutenant Colonel Howard
 * Miguel Ferrer as Colonel Garret
 * Dean Stockwell as Mark Whiting
 * Charles Napier as Lieutenant General Sloan
 * Jude Ciccolella as David Donovan
 * Tom Stechschulte as Governor Robert "Bob" Arthur
 * Pablo Schreiber as PFC Eddie Ingram
 * Anthony Mackie as PFC Robert Baker III
 * Robyn Hitchcock as Laurence Tokar
 * Obba Babatundé as Senator Wells
 * Željko Ivanek as Vaughn Utly
 * John Bedford Lloyd as Jay "J.B." Johnston


 * Cameos


 * Al Franken as a reporter
 * Sidney Lumet as a political pundit
 * Anna Deavere Smith as a political pundit
 * Roy Blount Jr. as a political pundit
 * Fred Brathwaite as a political pundit
 * Tracey Walter as Night Clerk
 * Roger Corman as the Secretary of State
 * Beau Sia (on a TV screen) as a presenter
 * Gayle King (on a TV screen) as a presenter

Production
Tina Sinatra was a co-producer of the film. Her father Frank Sinatra portrayed Marco in the original 1962 film and owned that film's legal distribution rights into the late 1980s, never re-releasing it during that time (although it did air on network television several times). In the original, nationally released during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the premise was based on communists taking control; in this remake, big corporate influence serves as the evil faction, a twist to maintain the "Manchurian connection". The remake does not follow the original film's plot details on several occasions.

The film's Persian Gulf War scenes were filmed in New Jersey.

Box office
The Manchurian Candidate was released July 30, 2004, alongside Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Thunderbirds, & The Village. The film grossed $65,955,630 in North America and $30,150,334 in other territories, totaling $96,105,964 worldwide.

Critical response
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 80% rating, based on 207 reviews, with an average rating of 7.11/10. The site's consensus reads, "While not the classic its predecessor is, this update is well-acted and conjures a chilling resonance." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 76, based on 41 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of Streep, "No one can talk about the acting in The Manchurian Candidate without rhapsodizing about Streep (in the role originated by Angela Lansbury). She has the Hillary hair and the Karen Hughes attack-dog energy, but the charm, the inspiration, and the constant invention are her own. She gives us a senator who's a monomaniac, a mad mommy and master politician rolled into one, a woman firing on so many levels that no one can keep up – someone who loves being evil as much as Streep loves acting. She's a pleasure to watch and to marvel at every second she's onscreen."