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17
88 Minutes
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67
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65
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65
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56
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55
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55
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54
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54
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53
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52
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51
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51
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48
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46
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45
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37
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34
Happening, The
32
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27
How to Rob a Bank
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Love Guru, The
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Postal
17
88 Minutes
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Manchurian Candidate, The
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for violence and some language
Starring
Denzel Washington,
Meryl Streep,
Liev Schreiber,
Kimberly Elise,
Vera Farmiga,
Jon Voight,
David Keeley,
and
Jeffrey Wright
As the entire nation watches the presidential campaign hurtle towards Election Day, one soldier races to uncover the conspiracy behind it -- a conspiracy that seeks to destroy democracy itself. (Paramount Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Daniel Pyne
Dean Georgaris
George Axelrod (1962 screenplay)
Richard Condon (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jonathan Demme
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 21, 2004
Video: December 21, 2004
Theatrical: July 30, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
120 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Newsweek
David Ansen
A hugely entertaining thriller shot through with dark shards of agony and paranoia. It takes nothing away from the original while delivering pleasures all its own.
100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
The strength of sensational material joined to excellent acting, superior filmmaking and uncanny political relevance has made The Manchurian Candidate into exceptionally intelligent entertainment and a high point of director Jonathan Demme's career.
100
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
Neither the social commentary nor the story ever overpower the other, a feat that allows this remake to stand proudly alongside the original, its equal in every way.
100
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Demme here shows off both the mastery of suspense that made "The Silence of the Lambs" a classic, and the humane understanding and appreciation of character that not just deepens but energizes this film.
90
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
A political thriller that manages to be at once silly and clever, buoyantly satirical and sneakily disturbing, but he (Demme) has recovered some of the lightness and sureness of touch that had faded from his movies after "The Silence of the Lambs."
90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A stylish hoot: entertainingly edgy and ludicrous all at once.
90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Shrewdly reconceived, powerfully acted and hugely entertaining.
90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Shockingly, he's (Jonathan Demme) pulled it off, replicating the original's tricky feat of investing a paranoid plot with timeliness, psychological complexity, sociopolitical acumen, and almost frightening conviction.
90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Structurally and thematically similar to John Frankenheimer's original but entirely different in style, feel and nuance, this political thriller about a brainwashed soldier being positioned for the White House provides a delectable network of dramatic tripwires that teases the mind and quickens the pulse. This is brainy popcorn fare.
89
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
We've come to expect each new Demme film to percolate to an urgently musical beat. (The Manchurian Candidate also features a few cameos by musicians as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock and Fab Five Freddy.)
88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
The performance of the movie is Liev Schreiber as Shaw, a man howlingly uncomfortable in his own skin.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
The updated classic is a chiller of a political thriller in its own right.
80
LA Weekly
John Powers
If Demme's version lacks the wallop of its predecessor, it is more likely to be popular with contemporary audiences, who will enjoy not only its labyrinthine twists but its stars' burnished professionalism.
80
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
What is surprising is how fresh Demme’s version is and how close it approaches the original in terms of quality.
80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Demme, who works a clever permutation on the original ending, is more than capable of doing the thriller thing--even with material that will strike a good percentage of his audience as familiar. As an intelligent genre flick, the movie plays to his strengths. His direction of actors has never been better.
80
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
His performance here made me suspect that Schreiber is, in a sense, another Kenneth Branagh--an extraordinary actor who is simply not a film star.
80
Empire
Angie Errigo
A cracking conspiracy thriller that's well-cast, slyly satirical and -- as a solid, glossy, contemporised remix of a classic -- rings enough creepy changes to surprise.
75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Demme's movie is just as sophisticated and knowing as Frankenheimer's, but it isn't as hip or daring. It doesn't haunt your mind or stir your sense of dread the way the '62 movie did--and it lacks almost totally the earlier film's piercing, oddball satire and humor.
75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
If you ride the paranoiac tide, letting Jonathan Demme's assured direction carry you along, the sardonic humor and anxiety-inducing message work on you.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Filled with conspiracies, intrigue and the suggestion that modern-day society is purposely designed to drive us a little nuts, The Manchurian Candidate is a paranoid fantasy for our time.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Sure, there are holes in The Manchurian Candidate, and tenuous coincidences and too-convenient plot devices. But Washington, Schreiber, Streep and company - and Demme - have managed to make all the malevolent machinations seem relevant again.
75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This riveting film is marred by compromises -- such as a switch of assassins to create an unpersuasive upbeat ending -- that keep it in the shadow of its predecessor.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Denzel Washington is stellar, and so is Tak Fujimoto's cinematography, which is as edgy and antsy as the story it tells.
75
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Washington is wisely cast as Marco; few actors command more instant respect, and the movie uses that to make his character both believable and sympathetic.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The first "Candidate" was inspired pop art, a two-dimensional coloring book about 1962 America's subterranean political fears. Demme's film is more nuanced, less crazy-brilliant and, yes, probably less necessary, but it's still a confirmation of all the anxieties out there on the table and festering in our heads.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Streep wisely goes for oblique humor rather than straight-ahead villainy, making the character different and yet just as loathsome.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Staff (Not Credited)
Part patrician WASP, part Lady Macbeth and revealing more than a little of Hilary Clinton steel, Streep crackles with neurotic energy and barely checked sexuality, sublimated into an addiction to power and an unhealthy devotion to her son.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
[Streep] isa pleasure to watch -- and to marvel at -- every second she's onscreen.
70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
In a story driven by questions of loyalty and allegiance, no candidate is identified by party. It's a bipartisan nightmare from which no one escapes unscathed.
70
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
Just as you feel the numbing, clammy clench of paranoia on your neck, you realize, nope, the grip is just the director's attempt at tickling you to death. Demme's movie had no right to work. It does, and then some.
70
Slate
David Edelstein
Beautifully made and unsurpassingly creepy, it's the rare remake with something contemporary to add.
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Very surprisingly, Meryl Streep is not wonderful as Schreiber's scheming, incestuously possessive mother. She gobbles up all the scenery but, for whatever reason, she's just not half as chilling a portrait of demented mother love as the original's Angela Lansbury.
67
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
What this Manchurian Candidate for a new generation makes up for in timing, it lacks in discipline and edge.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The result, regardless of how it was arrived at, is gutless.
63
USA Today
Mike Clark
A case of smart and talented people trying to jam a Cold War square into a Gulf War circle. You can feel the chafing, to say nothing of the burden this capably crafted shrug has taken on.
63
New York Post
Megan Lehmann
Uniformly excellent performances keep this destabilizing tale ticking, yet one can't help wishing Hollywood had combined this cast and these timely themes with a little bit of imagination to come up with something fresh.
60
The New Yorker
David Denby
The movie is overwrought and unfocussed.
60
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Demme’s Manchurian Candidate is far from a disgrace, but it's not freewheeling enough, not strange enough to make sense of our gathering dread.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Toothless, gutless, one-note political movies like Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate, a picture that purports to have a galvanizing, liberal-minded theme (big business is taking over our country and our lives) but is really just ploddingly pedestrian.
50
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
It all adds up to something less powerful and interesting than the original.
50
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
If you don't care about the first version, or what director Jonathan Demme's name once meant, the cast does an OK job with Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris's routine thriller script.
 The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 66 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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