The Manchurian Candidate

MPAA Rating

Theatrical Release Date

Jul 29, 2004

Genre(s)

Suspense
Thrillers
Mystery
Assassination Plots
Mind Games
Political Conspiracies
Race Against Time
Drama
4-for-3 Drama

Rating (Stars)

Description

The Manchurian Candidate, a classic of paranoid cinema from the 1960s, gets a cunning update, rife with hot-topic references to corporate war profiteering and electronic voting machines. Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington, Training Day) has been haunted by nightmares ever since a firefight during the first Gulf War--a battle in which he believes he was saved by the heroism of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, Kate & Leopold). But Marco's nightmares suggest otherwise and drive him to investigate what happened, which may threaten Shaw's candidacy for vice-president. Meryl Streep plays Shaw's mother, a senior senator who manipulates everyone around her with an iron will and a sharp tongue. The Manchurian Candidate loses steam towards the end, but up until then director Jonathan Demme keeps the movie rolling fluidly, crafting some creepy paranoia of his own while Streep tears into everything in her path. --Bret Fetzer

Director

Jonathan Demme

Stars

Jeffrey Wright
Pablo Schreiber
Anthony Mackie
Dorian Missick
Jose Pablo Cantillo

Running Time

129 minutes

Original Price

$9.98

Current Value

$0.01

DVD Features

Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Subtitled
Widescreen
NTSC
1.78:1