The Manchurian Candidate (2004 film)

The Manchurian Candidate is a 2004 American film based on the 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, and a reimagining of the previous 1962 film.

Plot

The movie has Shaw himself as the vice-presidential candidate; and Marco, also brainwashed but not fully aware of it, as the assassin. The film attempts to adapt itself to the modern world by having the brainwashing conducted by Manchurian Global, a large multinational corporation and government contractor (widely assumed to be comparable with the real world global private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, or sometimes the oil and military services contractor, Halliburton), with the aim of expanding corporate influence as well as government contracts for themselves. Instead of capture during the Korean War, and being brainwashed by communists, Marco and Shaw's unit is captured during the first Gulf War (Desert Storm), and brainwashed at a secret Manchurian Global facility.

Related Topics:
The Carlyle Group - Halliburton - Gulf War - Desert Storm

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Eugenie's incredibly friendly first meeting with Marco is retained almost verbatim, and made realistic when it is discovered that she is an FBI agent assigned to monitor him. It is Eugenie who then discovers Marco after the altered assassination (who kills Shaw, having just won the election, as opposed to the original where the assassination takes place just before a candidacy declaration). Unlike the original, where Shaw commits suicide after killing Iselin, the assassin (Marco) is subdued before he can do so.

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After hospitalization and conditioning, Marco helps the feds locate the abandoned island facility where he and his unit were brainwashed. In the original version, the question of whether the Communists' brainwashing technology could be used again are never addressed, and they simply disappear from the story.

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The motives behind the brainwashed assassination plot in the 2004 version are more straightforward than the collusive politics of the original version: a corporation desires increased influence over government, so brainwashes a candidate who can be made pliable to their wishes. The removal of the Chinese government from the plotline and their replacement by a corporation has been attributed by some as desire by the filmmakers not to offend China.

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