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The Manchurian Candidate
As a kidnapped and brainwashed soldier becomes the likely next Vice-President of the United States, another soldier races to uncover the conspiracy behind it, a conspiracy that seeks to destroy democracy itself.
29 May 1957, Bellaire, Ohio, USA
28 July 1970
25 August 1957, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
1956
7 January 1979, Peekskill, New York, USA
31 August 1959, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
11 April 1950, Santa Monica, California, USA
October 18, 2008
Demme's direction is as punctilious as it was in Silence of the Lambs, careful with details and craftsmanlike with storytelling -- although we do have to work a bit to stay on top of things.August 03, 2004
Following a dozen years of docs, light comedy, and p.c. weepies, Candidate represents Demme's best dramatic filmmaking since The Silence of the Lambs.August 08, 2004
Far from a disgrace, but it's not freewheeling enough, not strange enough to make sense of our gathering dread.November 20, 2008
It is as shocking now as it was forty years ago, but nothing in the 2004 version approaches that level of intensity, intelligence, or audacity.August 19, 2010
This humorless and nonsensical update of The Manchurian Candidate - a total misread of Frankenheimer's classic original - never quite engages, devolving the original's camp and satire into self-serious melodrama.December 28, 2010
Sleek remake is more violent than original.August 28, 2004
Demme serves the picture completely.April 29, 2009
A rather decent imitation in the end with political subtext and very good performances.August 13, 2004
Strikes me as a very artful cover -- about the cleverest imaginable transliteration of the story from its historical moment to ours.August 07, 2004
Beautifully made and unsurpassingly creepy, it's the rare remake with something contemporary to add.June 24, 2006
Happily, this extremely timely entertainment matches, even perhaps surpasses its predecessor.May 27, 2011
If it isn't the original's equal, The Manchurian Candidate conjures up an air of menace sufficient to make most modern thrillers look like romantic comedies.