It's rare for a remake to match the standard of a much lauded original, but this update of John Frankenheimer's classic 1962 psychological thriller comes pretty close. An intelligent and chillingly believable tale of brainwashing, exploitation and political corruption, it relocates the military conflict at the heart of the story from Communist Korea to the first Gulf War in Kuwait. Denzel Washington steps into Frank Sinatra's shoes, playing a tormented US Army major who unwittingly becomes the key to a complex political conspiracy. As with his Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme's controlled direction is exhilarating, and he elicits brilliant performances from a fine cast. Liev Schreiber finally gets a part to sink his teeth into, as Washington's former sergeant who becomes a vice presidential candidate, but it's Meryl Streep, as Schreiber's unscrupulous senator mother, who leaves the deepest impression.

Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.