MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Redux

I’m sure Tina Sinatra intended to pay homage to her old man when she served as a producer on Jonathan Demme’s new remake of The Manchurian Candidate. After all, Frank’s edgy performance in the John Frankenheimer original made that 1962 movie a classic. But much as I like Denzel Washington, he’s no Frank Sinatra. And Demme’s no Frankenheimer, either. I saw the new film last night, and as fun as it is at times – and as exceptional as its cast is – the new Manchurian Candidate limps behind its predecessor.

The main reason is These Times of Ours.

Four decades ago, George Axelrod’s script for the original film, adapted from the Richard Condon novel, packed a fierce emotional wallop. Those were the days of Camelot and the New Frontier. But Candidate was paranoid. And it was prophetic. Within months of its release, JFK was murdered in Dallas. The war in Vietnam escalated. Then King was gone. Then Bobby Kennedy. Then came Watergate. Maybe The Manchurian Candidate was too prophetic. Shortly after the JFK assassination, the movie dropped out of sight and was withheld from public viewing for 25 years. People talked about it, but nobody saw it. It became, well, legend.

Today, though, we live smack dab in The Age of Paranoia. We’ve seen the Emperor without his clothes (literally, in Clinton’s case). When planes hurtle into the World Trade Center, we mechanically ask, “Did the President know ahead of time?” During Campaign 2004, we realize instinctively that already “the fix is in.” So when we watch the new Manchurian Candidate, which offers a scenario where multinational corporate greedheads surgically tamper with the brain chemistry of Gulf War vets, we shrug and say, “So what?” It’s old hat. We were more shocked to see Peter Parker tear off his Spider-Man mask while M.J. was looking.

By all means, go see the new, unimproved Manchurian Candidate. It won’t rattle you like the original did audiences way back when. But you’ll get a kick out of it. Meryl Streep is every bit as scary as Angela Lansbury was in the first one. And after you experience the movie’s Election Night climax, you’ll wonder why no real presidential campaign has yet made use of the Kinks’ terrific old song “Better Things.”