Jonathan Demme’s update of The Manchurian Candidate aptly shifts the Frankenheimer thriller from the Cold War to the War on Terror: the National Guard stalks through every crowded space, cable news offers dizzying graphics and sound-bite platitudes, and US foreign policy is dictated by a shadowy corporation with some friends in very high places. But although the film keenly satirizes some of the pomp and paranoia of post-9/11 America, its impact is somewhat lessened with some underbaked psychedelic hallucinations (featuring exotic Arab women with tomatoes) and a creepy, incestuous mother-son relationship lifted wholesale from one of the later Psycho sequels. And the film’s resolution, with a studio backlot blue sky and a hasty roll of the credits, seems grafted onto the end of the film in place of something more pessimistic (and credible). One wonders whether the filmmakers themselves have any faith in the likelihood of such a happy ending.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Paramount Pictures DVD
18 Feb 2005 11:50 PM | Submit Comment
