Movie Review: The Manchurian Candidate

In Jonathan Demme’s re-imagination of the 1962 classic, The Manchurian Candidate, the world is not always as it seems, even if it seems as though Captain Bennett Marco’s perspective makes his an unreliable set of eyes through which to glimpse the political intrigue at work in the film. In updating the film’s original version to suit the modern age of disingenuous politicking and even less genuine forms of human manipulation, Demme provides a lens by which the disturbing state of affairs now dominating our socio-political landscape can be viewed to their fullest extent.

Though we can never be certain as to whether his view of life is accurate, neither can we know whether the same could be said of Captain Marco’s brother in arms, Schreiber’s Raymond Prentiss Shaw. Having served together in the Persian Gulf before the Arab Spring movement, Marco is wary of the service that he rendered on his nation’s behalf and wishes to see whether his fellow’s perceptions match his. Unbeknownst to Marco, Raymond has already been lost to the manipulations so intrinsic to the modern functioning of any political order worth considering.

As the film progresses, we watch as Marco battles with the overwhelming perception of his having been manipulated through some war-crimes laden attempt to program soldiers according to a desired function. As Washington’s character, Marco, proceeds to investigate his own demise, the viewer considers how close he might come to uncovering the truth or whether the truth is something that has been too heavily manipulated to be known in full.

Work Cited

The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Perf. Denzel Washington, Live Schreiber, Meryl Streep. Paramount Pictures., 2004. Film.