STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Are you talking about the original with Frank Sinatra or the remake with Denzel Washington?

In the original the group of soldiers is supposedly captured and one of them, Raymond Shaw, is presented by the Army as a hero who saved his unit. Shaw's mother is power-hungry and has a weird incestuous situation with Raymond. She has remarried a VP candidate who is a bit of a buffoon and a Joe McCarthy figure (obsessed with protecting the country from communists) and uses Raymond's fame as a way to gain attention for her husband's campaign.
A member of Shaw's unit named Marco begins having horrible recurring nightmares about being brainwashed by Chinese communists. Part of the dreams involve a member of the unit who was supposedly killed during the skirmish being killed by Shaw after he is commanded to do so by the brainwasher. Another involves all of the soldiers repeating compliments about Shaw - saying that he saved their lives, he's the bravest person etc. etc.

Marco begins trying to investigate and figures out that Shaw has been brainwashed and there are certain trigger words which people can use to control him. At one point it is revealed that Shaw's mother is actually in on the brainwashing plot and she commands him to kill one of their family's political enemies (a senator), as well as the senator's daughter who is Raymond's love interest . Mrs. Shaw later gives him instructions to assasinate the presidential candidate during the party's convention which would allow her husband to run as president and since she can pull her husband's strings she and her fellow communists would really be running the country. As Marco figures more and more of this out he tries to undo the brainwashing but isn't sure if he is successful. During the political convention Shaw takes his position with a rifle and waits for the code word. When the time comes for him to shoot the presidential candidate - either because Marco successfully undid the brainwashing or because he finally figured out that his mother is evil - he instead shoots his step-father (the VP candidate) and then his mother who is also on the stage. He then shoots himself.


I saw the remake on a plane so I'm kind of fuzzy on the details but the premise is pretty much identical except that it's a corporation which want to control the country instead of communists. There are other minor differences - the soldiers were implanted with microchips, the Raymond Shaw character (Liev Schrieber) is a himself a politician and is running for vice president. In the remake it is the Marco (Denzel) character who is programmed to shoot the presidential candidate so then Raymond Shaw can become president. However Shaw somehow breaks out of his brainwashed mode and must figure out that his mother is evil and that he has done horrible things so he moves to the mark where Denzel is aiming to shoot and grabs his mother so that they are both hit by the bullet. I vaguely remember that Denzel then tries to shoot himself but the FBI agents save him and then orchestrate a cover-up, I guess to protect Denzel but wasn't there also some connection to the Manchurian Corporation? I thought the story the FBI came up with involved a Manchurian employee being the shooter.

HTH!