The Manchurian Candidate

This is a remake of the 1962 film, The Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury, which was about a Korean War veteran who was brainwashed by the Chinese as part of a Communist plot to assassinate the president. In this 2004 remake, Captain Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) served together during the initial Persian Gulf War, and were part of a platoon of U.S. soldiers who were kidnapped by the enemy, and brainwashed to become pawns once they return home. Now, ten years later, Raymond Shaw is rapidly climbing the political ladder. Marco, however, is not dealing with the post-war adjustment nearly as well, and eventually remembers being brainwashed. Concerned that Shaw might not remember the results of their wartime capture, Marco contacts him in an furious attempt to get through to him before something terrible occurs.