good back-story, and good acting

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Have you seen it? No? There is likely a very good reason for that...it stinks.Like nearly ALL the endless remakes and reboots that have been plaguing movie goers for the past decade or so....all this is, is a heartless version of the original.It has no heart.It has no soul.It is a retelling of a film that we all love and cherish...and it adds nothing to the story. It improves nothing but the special effects--which held up very well over time--and in some cases belittles the fans of the original...particularly in the fact that they remade the movie at all, without adding anything clever to it.Like so many other remakes it is a hallow shell of the original.

Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate is a perfect mesh of political and psychological thriller, and does a bang up job in both departments. Now I haven't seen the original film, but I loved this one based on its own merit. It's a sickeningly suspenseful nightmare, and shows a dark, corrupted path that we can only hope isn't as far gone as the States have become. Denzel Washington plays Bennett Marco, an ex military loner and war hero who's laying low, when a distraught army buddy (Jeffrey Wright, excellently portraying a fraying, fractured mind) reaches out to him, asking him to consider if the heroics they participated in that day in the gulf were actually real, some constructed memory implant, or something worse. He shows Bennett eerie drawings from his pervasive nightmares, and has trouble not breaking down when speaking of this. This encounter triggers unsettling memories in Marco himself, and as he begins to hallucinate and question the validity of his own recollections, he turns his attention to Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), another member of their unit who is now on the brink of unprecedented political power. Marco tries to confront him on what really happened, and what their nightmares mean, and initially looks like a sputtering lunatic. Gradually Shaw begins to wonder as well. Schreiber gives a forlorn, withdrawn take on him, mentally scarred by the past and pressured by his domineering, manipulative demon of a mommy (Meryl Streep, a deceptive, sociopathic spider in the best work of the film). They uncover secrets stemming back to their time in the Gulf, secrets that altered the pattern of events to come, and forever decimated any hope of sanity they have. As usual the conspiracy comes from within, and the more we learn about the intentions behind it, the more terrified and reminded of our world today we become. For 2004 it sure had a few uncanny predictions up its sleeve. The last thirty minutes are comprised of sharp, measured storytelling that most thrillers only dream of attaining. Denzel is great as always, playing Marco with a sceptical uncertainty, and eventually full out terror. Kimberly Elise rocks it as a mysterious woman who enters his life. Ratlike Simon Mcburney excels as a shady Doctor who enters their waking nightmares, only to lay a huge part in the atrocities committed against them later on. Jon Voight, Vera Farmiga, Bruno Ganz, Miguel Ferrer and Ted Levine all show up to round out the roster as well. Political thrillers don't get more pointed or disconcerting than this nausea inducing thrill ride, and it has the added benefit of the surreal mind games and stark, mentally disturbing imagery that will give you shivers.

The remake of The Manchurian Candidate is one of the few Denzel Washington films I've never seen. To be honest, the story just didn't interest me that much, but it started streaming this month, so I gave it a shot. As expected, it's a someone complex story, that at times was difficult to understand, however an all-star cast manages to pull it together at the end. The story begins in Iraq during the Gulf War, when a U.S. Army platoon goes missing for three days. Even they were unaware of what happened to them, until one of the men starts having nightmares, and bodies start turning up. Denzel Washington plays the commanding officer, who takes it upon himself to investigate the strange deaths of his men, almost a decade later. As always, Washington is at the top of his game, giving off that infectious intensity, that keeps you on the edge of your seat through every step of the investigation. Washington is paired with Liev Schreiber who is one guy that has always just rubbed me the wrong way. It's not that he's a bad actor, there is just something about him and the characters he plays that is inherently unlikeable. He wasn't bad in this film, but being a similarly intense actor, meant that the chemistry with Washington was almost non-existent. The story is complicated and in the beginning of the film, it's going to be somewhat hard to watch. As the film proceeds and the elements become more clear, the film gets easier to watch, and the ending really pulls everything together. The Manchurian Candidate is one of those films that you think is going to be a bust, some people may even turn it off, but those who stick with it will see that it just gets better and better until a surprise ending brings it all together. If I were the writer of this film, I would have made the beginning of the film more intense and less confusing. The truth is the most important parts of a film are the beginning and the end, and without a strong opening, a lot of people will be turned off to the film and have the wrong attitude throughout. If you manage to stick with it, The Manchurian Candidate is great, but it does take a while to get there.

This version of the movies is a bridge to the show "Homeland"-some interesting real-life history about both of them athttp://www.koreanconfidential.com/manchuriancandidatesreport.htmlThis version of the movies is a bridge to the show "Homeland"-some interesting real-life history about both of them athttp://www.koreanconfidential.com/manchuriancandidatesreport.htmlThis version of the movies is a bridge to the show "Homeland"-some interesting real-life history about both of them athttp://www.koreanconfidential.com/manchuriancandidatesreport.html11