The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

IMDB

"This isn't an election, this is a coup."

Considering how much I like Denzel Washington, I surprise myself with how few of his films I've seen. I guess I always faced the same problem which wasn't resolved by this release; he likes thrillers, me - not so much. Perhaps the problem is seeing too many TV thrillers. A good one has to build realistic suspense and demands faultless performances, much like a magic trick, otherwise the illusion falls apart.

This was certainly wasn't faultless, but did keep me enjoyably gripped. Having not seen the original (Angela Lansbury!) I can't judge whether some characters in 2004 were derivations, which may explain their tendencies to one-dimensionality. Maybe some of the direction or narrative arc wasn't up to scratch, I dunno. But the first hour suffers as a result. The introduction of Bruno Ganz brightened things up, for me, and - perhaps not co-incidentally - upped the tempo and really injected some life.

Blah blah blah I'm pretending to talk about films like I know something, which is terribly boring. All I know is eight days in and no terrible films yet, none that I regret seeing anyway (hmm, I'm looking at you, Bruce Almighty). But maybe watching this film now is good justification for not seeing it at the cinema; if I'd done that for all the films I wanted to watch on the big screen, who knows what kind of financial ruin I'd currently be in (current status: £126 until bankruptcy becomes an option).