BEFORE: We now return to our regularly-scheduled Denzel Washington chain, already in progress. Jeffrey Wright carries over from "Source Code" in a nice bit of coincidence.
I was playing around with the IMDB yesterday, and I finally figured out how to use the filters to search for how many appearances an actor has in my list of watched movies. The search feature on this blog is unreliable, so I usually have to resort to my memory, which is also unreliable. (Which is why I have a list.) So now I can answer the question - which actors have dominated the countdown?
Number 1 is Robert De Niro, with 31 appearances - no shocker there, since it took me over three weeks to watch his films in a chain, plus he's popped up here and there since then. Tied for second are Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt, with 24 each. In 4th place there's another tie, upstart Owen Wilson has 22 appearances, and so does Samuel L. Jackson, thanks to all those Marvel movies. Meryl Streep moves into a 3-way tie for 6th tonight with her 21st film, putting her in league with the omnipresent Steve Buscemi and, somehow, Danny DeVito. And Denzel breaks into the top 10 tonight, tied for 9th place with Matt Damon - both have 20 films in the project. The project's not over, but De Niro's going to be tough to beat.
Just below the top 10 are George Clooney, Jack Nicholson and Ben Stiller, each with 19 films. A late run by Clooney could put him in the top 10 - and Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Robert Redford, Bruce Willis, Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich are surprisingly some of the also-rans. There are some weird stats, like I've seen more films with John C. Reilly than Will Ferrell, but that just means Reilly is more versatile. Nicolas Cage and Adam Sandler are way back in the pack - I guess it just feels like I've seen more of their films than I actually have.
THE PLOT: In the midst of the Gulf War, soldiers are kidnapped and brainwashed for sinister purposes.
AFTER: I watched the original version of this film, the Sinatra one, back in Nov. 2010 - on Veteran's Day, no less, and I thought it was sort of O.K., gave it a 4. Lots of filler, though, and its legacy was to inspire silly brainwashing plots on TV shows like "Gilligan's Island". Overall it was pretty low-rent and effects-free, so I think it was pretty ripe for an update. This is where my rating system sort of deviates from the norm - the original film is regarded as a "classic" bit of cinema, and usually gets a high rating, but to me it seems outdated and less relevant, and that should be reflected in the rating.
Here it seems like they deconstructed the plot and then re-assembled it, keeping the parts that worked and discarding what didn't. Updating the film to cover the first Gulf War makes sense (see also: "Iron Man") but the connection to Red China is lost, and unfortunately so is the meaning of the title. The way that they had to shoehorn in the word "Manchurian" into this plot was very clunky. On the plus side, we've had a lot of scientific innovation in the last few decades, with brain surgery, implanted tracking chips, genetic manipulation - so why not improved brainwashing?
They dispensed with the use of playing cards as a trigger, which I have to applaud. It's just too unreliable - what if the Queen of Diamonds gets stuck on the bottom of the deck, or if the assassin is not a great solitaire player? By the same token, what happens during a friendly game of "Go Fish" when the wrong card comes up? It's too risky. Which is a shame only because playing cards made an appearance during "Source Code", and I'd hoped that would help connect the two films. Still, I hope someday someone remakes this film with Penn & Teller, where Teller plays the silent assassin, and the trigger card is the three of clubs. Someone get working on that.
But like last night, we've got questions here about what constitutes reality - what happens when someone's memories of an incident might not be real? Of course we want to believe Denzel's character because he's our broken hero, but there's an equal amount of evidence surrounding him that shows he might be crazy. Throw in Gulf War syndrome and PTSD, and general paranoia, and all bets are off.
There are references here to global terrorism, the prevalence of security cameras, the power of corporations and lobbyists, and of course it's an election year - so good timing all around, and a good way to update a sleeper film from the 1960's. The big problem with a remake is that you may go in knowing all the plot twists - but they changed up a key piece of the puzzle and shifted the duties of the characters a bit, so it did keep me guessing about how it was all going to shake down. It's funny, we had John McCain, noted veteran and P.O.W. running for office last time, and no one ever suggested any kind of VietCong assassin-related programming.
I know, I know, it couldn't happen (or could it?). Even under hypnosis, people can't be convinced to do something that goes against their morals. So the use of tech here is sort of smoke and mirrors to convince us that we're getting close. But it's a long leap from improving the DNA of a tomato to programming a robotic killing machine. (or is it?)
Also starring Liev Schreiber (last seen in "Salt"), Meryl Streep (last seen in "The Hours"), Jon Voight (last seen in "Midnight Cowboy"), Kimberly Elise, Simon McBurney, with cameos from Vera Farmiga (also carrying over from "Source Code"), Bill Irwin, Al Franken, Dean Stockwell, Miguel Ferrer, Ted Levine (last seen in "Heat"), Zeljko Ivanek.
RATING: 6 out of 10 secret service agents
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