The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 Remake of the 1962 film based on the Conspiracy Thriller novel by Richard Condon, about the son of a prominent political family who has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin.

During Operation Desert Storm, Captain Bennett Marco and Sergeant Raymond Shaw were part of a platoon that was captured. They are brainwashed by an evil corporation to believe that Sgt. Shaw saved their lives in combat for which the Army awards him the Medal of Honor.

Years later Marco, now an intelligence officer, starts suffering from a recurring nightmare about Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all observed by Chinese and Russian officers. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncovering the mystery - and makes a terrifying discovery. Shaw is being used as a sleeper agent for the Communists, programmed as a guiltless assassin, subconsciously activated with a particular trigger - the Queen of Diamonds in a deck of cards. Thus, he is activated, kills the target, and immediately forgets. Shaw's controller is his own mother, who is working with the Communists in order to quietly overthrow the United States government with her Manchurian Candidate. His programming is eventually broken by Marco using a deck of cards entirely composed of the Queen of Diamonds.

The film stars Denzel Washington as Ben Marco and Liev Schrieber as Raymond Shaw. Meryl Streep plays Shaw's mother, Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw. It also adds a twist to the plot as previously seen in the novel and earlier film, and is considerably less faithful to the original novel than its predecessor.

Tropes used in The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film) include:

In addition to or in place of the tropes found in the original novel and the 1962 film, this movie contains:

  • Artifact Title: The 2004 movie doesn't have anything to do with Manchuria, although the writers justify the title by involving a corporation called "Manchurian Global" in the plot.
  • Denied Parody: Meryl Streep denied that her portrayal of Eleanor Shaw in the 2004 movie was based on Hillary Clinton, Power Hair notwithstanding. She also reports that many British viewers assumed that her take on Eleanor Shaw was based on Margaret Thatcher.
  • Deep-Cover Agent: Rosie (see Satellite Character below).
  • Evil, Inc.: Manchurian Global.
  • Framing the Guilty Party: A complex example.
  • Gulf War: Marco and Raymond were buddies during this period, and it was in this time that the brainwashing took place. The meat of the story, meanwhile, is set Twenty Minutes Into the Future during the War On Terror.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Shaw and Marco are both able to partially overcome their programming and Shaw gets Marco to shoot him and his mother to stop the plot.
  • Hypno Fool: Somewhat averted. Word of God says they intended to portray the brainwashed state as a state of heightened awareness rather than a zombielike trance. How easily this comes across is debatable, though.
  • Manchurian Agent: The Trope Namer.
  • Mood Whiplash: There is considerably less of this than there is in the original novel, which jumped from campy political farce to bleak character study to suspenseful thriller and back.
  • No Party Given: The political party responsible for all this is never named, even during a strategy session involving the electoral map.
    • It's implied that Raymond's mother's party is the Democrats, what with the mention of being denied the White House another four years and their strength being with the northeast, west, blacks, and college students.
  • Playing Gertrude: Averted — Meryl Streep (55) plays the mother of Liev Schreiber (37).
  • Power Hair: Shaw's mother.
  • The Remake: This film shares the basic plot of its predecessors, but many things are changed.
  • Satellite Character/Shallow Love Interest: Rosie. Unlike its predecessors, this film makes it very clear that she is a Deep-Cover Agent deliberately sent after Marco.
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: Teased at. Marco is talking with his... let's say practical psychologist about his dreams, when the doctor abruptly asks "What if this is all a dream and you are really still back in Kuwait?". Given the setting and tone of the movie, and some of the later events (including how the aforementioned psychologist simply vanishes not long after), there's really no reason to totally discount this theory.
    • Well, Delp doesn't exactly "vanish" -- judging by the look of his stripped-bare laboratory when Ben goes back to it, Delp has been quite deliberately removed by someone, most likely someone in the pay of Manchurian Global. But, yes: in the DVD commentary Jonathan Demme remarks that at any point in the course of the film it would be totally plausible to cut to Ben waking up.
  • Trigger Phrase: The movie has a personalized Trigger Phrase, in the form of their names and old ranks, recited in a certain specific way.
  • What We Now Know to Be True: Apparently, it's an "old wives' tale" that hypnotized people can't be forced to do things that are against their natures.
    • That depends, largely on what kind of drugs you have at your disposal. Short version: if you've got someone really skilled and the cash to spend (and it is implied that Manchurian Global put a great deal of money into this endeavor), then yes, you can certainly make someone do something they really really don't want to do.
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