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The Manchurian Candidate Starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber Screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris Based on a novel by Richard Condon and a screenplay by George Axelrod Directed by Jonathan Demme website: www.manchuriancandidatemovie.com

IN SHORT: IN SHORT: Denzel makes a popcorn flick. Eat it up.[Rated R for violence and some language. minutes]

Just after seeing, and enjoying The Manchurian Candidate (which has nothing to do with the territory of Manchuria and very little to do with the original, Frank Sinatra starrer) our back went out big time. Forgive us if this is short and sweet.

Originally conceived in a time when all good Americans were paranoid about a Communist takeover, the original story spoke to the fear of the times. With the Soviet Union gone, this remake tries to boost evil, faceless mega corporations into the super villain role. The new script doesn't go far enough to make that particular case. What it does is provide characters so deeply drawn that we don't mind the slightness of the back story.

For an unspecified political party in an unspecified presidential election year, Senator Thomas Jordan (Jon Voight) is slated to be the veep designate beside presidential hopeful Robert Arthur (Tom Stechschulte). Thanks to the wrangling of super-Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep), her beloved war hero son, Rep. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) gets the party's nod.

Of course we, the audience, already know that the war hero is anything but. The star of this story is US Army Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington), veteran of the same Desert Storm combat squad and currently a PR flack in a dress uniform. Only when confronted by a fellow DS squad member, one Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), does Major Marco realize that his memories of what occurred nine years earlier may not be correct. Melvin has been haunted by dreams of those days. Marco has been avoiding the dream state altogether. When he gives in and starts to remember, well, you know what happens when you don't let sleeping dogs lie. Especially if those memories get in the way of politics.

That's all we need to write, basically. The best aspect of The Manchurian Candidate is that no one is what they seem to be. That observation applies to just about all characters, major and minor. The negative, small as it is, is that the uber-bad guys and their reason for being uber-bad isn't delineated with great clarity. It's buried in the backstory information but, were we to say evil corporation to you, that's fairly old hat. The reason we're not going to gripe like an old fart is that the last ten-twenty minutes of the piece are flat out edge of your seat thrilling.

Washington and Schreiber are top-notch in their roles. Meryl Streep is absolutely awesome.

On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Ten Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to The Manchurian Candidate, he would have paid . . .

$7.00

We could niggle about minor things that were occasionally distracting but we won't. The Manchurian Candidate is a flat out A-list thriller worthy of the extra large tub o' corn. See it.

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