Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
2.5/4
"The Manchurian Candidate" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/27/2012
The captain of a recon patrol which went missing for three days in the deserts of Kuwait begins to question his own memories after a disturbing visit from one of his men. "Remake" is inevitably a dirty word in cinema but Jonathan "Silence Of The Lambs" Demme is no stranger to suspense, which along with a promising cast made this film a rather more interesting propostion than most Hollywood cash cows. In fact Demme's skillful build up of tension combined with Denzel's believable performance as a man who is hallucinating, possibly delusional and questioning his sanity makes for a very intriguing foundation to the story. It also chooses to avoid the usual laziness of most Hollywood thrillers by not including irrelevant gun battles and car chases, and has enough twists and turns to the plot …
Rating of
2/4
Remake ambush
Snake Sugarbaker - wrote on 12/11/2009
War sucks, dude. There's no Ricki Lake, never enough peanut butter, and your dick can get shot off. Even worse, the enemy might capture you and brainwash you into thinking that the unpopular coward in your platoon saved your life.
This seems to be the case for Capt. Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) in The Manchurian Candidate. Having recommended Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) for a medal of honor because of his supposed heroics during the first Gulf War, Marco even lectures to Boy Scouts that Shaw is "the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being" he's ever known. Marco says nothing however, of his frequent nightmares, which portray Shaw in a much different light--one in which Shaw ain't no hero.
Dismissed until now as effects of Gulf War Syndrome, these nightmares …
