In sports teams and things mechanical, the saying is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In Hollywood, it should be: "If it ain't half bad, don't remake it."
John Frankenheimer's 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate is not just half bad, it is all brilliant, ranking as one of the great American movies and one of the finest espionage thrillers ever made anywhere.
So it was inevitable that Jonathan Demme's remake -- starring Denzel Washington in a scrambled revision of the role that Frank Sinatra absolutely nailed to an unholy cross in the original -- would be disappointing.
Not a disaster. Not a disgrace. Just slightly off-putting. Especially if memories of the Frankenheimer opus are fresh. Demme's work is less polished, too cluttered, even too modern in comparison.
That said, I recognize that most people going to the new movie will not have seen the original, particularly because it had been pulled out of circulation for so long.
In addition, some may not care to bother, in part because it is set in the Cold War, 50 years ago, and in part because it was filmed, gorgeously, in B&W, and audiences now gravitate to colour.
So how does Demme's version stand up just on its own? Reasonably well. It even has its explosive moments and its provocative intrigue, as well as a phalanx of strong performances. Washington is, as always, a dynamo in selling his anti-heroic character, a senior U.S. soldier thought to be mentally unstable. Also showing well are Meryl Streep as the witch-bitch political manipulator, Liev Schreiber as her acidic soldier son, Jon Voight as the idealistic senator and Kimberly Elise in an altered version of the capricious role Janet Leigh made famous in the original.
But the film still has problems and some of them relate to the revisions Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris worked on George Axelrod's 1962 screenplay and Richard Condon's source novel.
The lines of intrigue and motives for double-crosses and blood betrayals were so much cleaner, so much more tautly linked together, in the original -- without sacrificing the moral complexities.
In the 1962 film, the parallel plots that collided so violently concerned a U.S. political family with White House aspirations and a diabolical brainwashing scheme concocted by Iron Curtain agents. Their victims were U.S. troops serving in Korea. The Queen of Diamonds card was a unique trigger for mind control.
In the 2004 film, similar parallel plots are in play, although updated. The political family is still gunning for the presidency, although by different means.
This time, the brainwash victims are U.S. troops from the first Gulf War and the perpetrators are corporate monsters, not political ones.
There is no Queen of Diamonds. A host of other minor, yet crucial, things are changed, not for the better. Who does what at the climactic confrontation is unsettling. Even the film's title, now an artificial construct, has less meaning.
This genre works when the plot, the action and the characters move as a cohesive whole to the climax. There can be surprises, even shocks. Characters can turn on you. Moral dilemmas arise. But the thriller needs to thrill with clarity.
The new version of The Manchurian Candidate, however, is too murky and too compromised to rank with its great predecessor, a true classic. The remake may even be entertaining enough to serve as a diversion in a U.S. election year, but it was unnecessary.
(This film is rated 14-A)
More Movie Reviews
