What’s the Similarity Between “Homeland” and the John Frankenheimer Film “The Manchurian Candidate”?
Frankenheimer’s landmark film also deals with a prisoner of war who returns home as a war hero even though he’s secretly switched his allegiance to another country. Besides the premise, many critics have noted that both works portray a symbiotic relationship between the United States and its enemies. In Frankenheimer’s darkly satirical film, breeding fears of Communism fuels a plot to bring authoritarian rule to the U.S. led by a covert Communist agent; in Homeland, U.S. foreign policy addressing terrorism winds up breeding anti-American sentiment that leads to a growth in terrorist recruits.