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Gulf War veteran Ben Marco (Washington) has strange dreams about an incident in Kuwait involving one of the soldiers under his command, Raymond Shaw (Schreiber), who on that fateful day in Kuwait became a hero. This led to a shining future as a Congressman and now perhaps his party's Vice Presidential nominee. Could his mother (Streep), a powerfully ambitious senator with real attitude, be any more proud? But as Marco digs into his jumbled memories he makes some eerie discoveries, a conspiracy begins to emerge, and Marco finds it hard to trust anyone.

This is an smart, snappy script, rocketing through the material in a way that almost dares us to keep up with it. This succeeds in putting us immediately on Marco's side, and Washington is as sympathetic as ever (maybe too much so--the film never makes the most of his talents as an actor). We are right with him through every wrinkle in the story, each new discovery sends chills up our spines, and each face off between important figures builds real tension, especially when the updated plot touches on some seriously important issues (the title now refers to the greedy multinational Manchurian Global).

Alas, Demme doesn't quite go for the jugular. After dropping this tasty titbit in our laps, he veers back in to thriller-land and continues to engross us without making us squirm too much. As it progresses, Streep steals the film with her delightfully entertaining scene-chomping, while Schreiber slowly builds a performance of real power to become the heart and soul of the tale. As far as thrillers go, this is well above average. But in shying away from saying something revelatory, it's not a patch on the original.