The fact that this is a remake of a film released 42 years ago probably won’t matter much to modern audiences. What will be relevant, however, is that on the heels of an awful remake of “Charade” (renamed “The Truth About Charlie”) Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme returns to “Silence of the Lambs”-type form. Working from a highly involved script by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris (adapted from Richard Condon’s classic book), with a stellar cast that includes Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Jon Voight —– who count five gold statuettes between them — Demme takes us on an suspenseful journey rife with intrigue and fueled by paranoia.
When we meet U.S. Army Captain Bennett Marco (Washington, handling the heavy lifting with natural ease), he’s leading his platoon on a routine reconnaissance mission in Kuwait, circa Desert Storm. During an ambush, Marco is knocked unconscious, and later recalls that his unit — with the exception of two casualties — was single-handedly saved by one of his soldiers, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), a member of one of America’s most influential political families. Back in the present, Marco is recounting Shaw’s Medal of Honor-winning heroics to a Boy Scout troop when he’s approached by another former member of his platoon, Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright). Melvin’s been having strange dreams suggesting that perhaps Shaw’s rescue in the desert didn’t go down as widely reported. Marco’s been having similar dreams — about he and his men wired to strange machines, being probed and prodded by a sinister scientist. After Melvin turns up dead, and Shaw becomes a vice-presidential nominee on the strength of his war record, Marco decides to confront him with a bizarre brainwashing theory. Little does Marco know, he is about to be ambushed again.
Streep exudes iciness as Shaw’s domineering mother, Senator Eleanor “Ellie” Shaw, a Beltway power-player who will stop at nothing to get her son into the White House. Voight, as a good-guy Senator squeezed out of the VP nomination, is equally up to task. A tense score from Rachel Portman and Wyclef Jean, along with Hitchcock-esque visuals courtesy of longtime Demme DP, Tak Fujimoto, combine to enhance the uneasy sensation that hangs over this film from beginning to end. (Rated R for violence and some language. Running time: 130 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 30, 2004. Read the original PDF.