In that powerful story, there seems to be a dark political side trying to destroy democracy. That story begins when the abducted soldier becomes the next vice president of the United States under these bad conditions. But another soldier is still trying to uncover the plot behind him, a conspiracy that seeks to destroy democracy itself. There could be more challenges for everyone.
If it isn't the original's equal, The Manchurian Candidate conjures up an air of menace sufficient to make most modern thrillers look like romantic comedies.
Following a dozen years of docs, light comedy, and p.c. weepies, Candidate represents Demme's best dramatic filmmaking since The Silence of the Lambs.
Cinema Writer
August 19, 2010
This humorless and nonsensical update of The Manchurian Candidate - a total misread of Frankenheimer's classic original - never quite engages, devolving the original's camp and satire into self-serious melodrama.
Demme's direction is as punctilious as it was in Silence of the Lambs, careful with details and craftsmanlike with storytelling -- although we do have to work a bit to stay on top of things.
