Denzel Washington

NEW YORK, July 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At a timing some critics see as perfect, a new film probing how US multinational companies influence and manipulate the government's decisions to go to war has been released across the United States.

"Manchurian Candidate", a remake of a classic Cold War film about brainwashing and political assassination made in 1962, was directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.

The title refers to a mogul corporation with a secret agenda, with the main plot revolving around political deception and corporate conspiracies arising from the  second Gulf War in 1991.

The line of events focuses on the story of a multinational company, Manchurian Global, which makes huge profits whenever America is at war.

The film commences in 1991 Kuwait , where Washington , as Major Ben Marco, is leading a platoon through a treacherous desert planted with mines, The Cinema Confidential website reported Friday.

There is a battle with the "enemy" and Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), the son of a major influential political family, is decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism in the field.

The intrigue of the story is that neither Marco nor Shaw has any memory of his heroics.

The film portrayed a number of the battalion survivors are suffering from post-dramatic stress disorder thirteen years later and many of them confuse their memories of what happened with their own interpretation in their dreams.

Marco comes to terms that his men, himself included, were possibly brainwashed after being abducted into a prisoner camp where they were the guinea pigs for some far-out experiments.

Shaw's mother, played with diabolical relish by Streep, is a US senator whose own thwarted ambition leads her to parlay her adored son's Gulf War heroics into a vice presidential bid for him as she schemes to pave his path to the Oval Office.

Even modern television is satirized in the film with its sensationalized and corporate-conducted news on the war.

Controversy

Demme makes a peace sign as he arrives for the film premiere

The political thriller's release is expected to stir a controversy in the run up to the presidential elections and in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, justified on searching for weapons of mass destruction – none of which have been found in the oil-rich country so far.

While the movie is careful not to affiliate the characters with any particular political party, the comparisons to today's political climate and the controversy over the US government's ties to firms such as Halliburton may appear obvious to fans of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", CNN reported Friday.

Press reports had said that US Vice President Dick Cheney "coordinated" a multibillion-dollar oil contract in Iraq to his former employer Halliburton before the US-led invasion of Iraq .

The corporation, which was awarded a multi-billion no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq 's oil industry, embarrassed the Bush administration after overcharging US forces in Iraq for fuel by up to $61 million.

Provoking

Co-producer Tina Sinatra said she was pleased the politically minded film was ready for the run-up to November's US presidential election.

"And when you have a political backdrop and you've got this particular climate, we knew it would support the film.

"And 'Fahrenheit 9/11' bumped it up another notch," Sinatra said, referring to Michael Moore's documentary attacking President Bush and the war in Iraq .

"I think the American people are thrilled to have movies like this to go to," she said. "I went to see 'Fahrenheit' and people were talking to the screen and venting their feelings. I think it's stimulating and healthy ... and we're glad to be a part of it."

Moore 's documentary, which won the Cannes film festival’s top prize in May, explores links between the Bush family and powerful Saudi Arabians, including relatives of Osama bin Laden.

It also contends that Bush thrust America into war with Iraq by propagating misinformation and exploiting public fear in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

In December 2003, a US anti-Iraq war documentary has been released offering an in-depth look at the "spin and hype" presented to the Americans on Iraq 's alleged weapons of mass destruction, once the central rationale for going to war.

The 'Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War' documentary detailed the lies, misstatements and exaggerations that served as the reasons to fight a "preemptive" war that wasn't necessary.