John Frankenheimer's 1962 Manchurian Candidate is a classic political satire that needed no remake. But director Jonathan Demme creates a mesmerizing mind-teaser from the original 1959 novel. This time, the menace is mind-control that powerful corporations exert in the Halliburton-Tyco-Enron era. With an assassin holed up at a political convention, the climax couldn't be timelier.

Denzel Washington has Sinatra's 1962 role of Ben Marco, who this time is a Gulf War veteran haunted by combat nightmares, and worried that New York congressman Raymond Shaw (Schreiber), a heroic sergeant from his platoon, might in fact be a pawn, a sleeper whom mind-controllers want in the White House. When Raymond's senator mother, Eleanor Shaw (Streep), ramrods Raymond in as the vice-presidential nominee, tension mounts.

All hell breaks loose as Demme catches the audience in a vise of churning suspense and corrosive wit. And in an odd twist, this riveting film also has an upbeat ending that keep it in the shadow of its predecessor.