The Majestic plays like a Hollywood remake, but it actually isn't one. Michael Sloane's screenplay is an original work and is, for the most part, genuinely entertaining. The trouble comes with its director, Frank Darabont, who for some bizarre reason has always exercised his creative veto on projects such as the Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile. Frankly, the slack editing teams he works with continue to include far more than is necessary to tell a good story. I certainly don't mind if a film is thorough and I'll usually appreciate embellishments, but Darabont specifically has a peculiar habit of inserting passages and sequences that drag the overall pace down and often contribute nothing to the narrative, the character development, or the tone of the picture. In the Majestic, for example, there are simply far too many subplots, despite the fact that almost all of them are well executed. It's a shame, because the meat and potatoes of it all would have worked much better without all the diversions.
It stars Jim Carrey as Peter Appleton, a down-on-his-luck 1950's screenwriter who attended a rally in his youth to impress a girl and now finds himself blacklisted due to the rally's pro-Communism undertones. One night, he gets himself drunk and has an automobile accident. When Peter awakes, he finds himself suffering from amnesia. He is led back to a small town by a kind samaritan (James Whitmore). There, all of the townspeople mistake him for one of its fallen heroes from the Second World War. His longlost, grieving father is played by Martin Landau, and Laurie Holden is Adele, the girl he left behind.
Since Appleton is the target of an anti-Communist movement, there is a contrived third act that has very little to do with the quainter first two acts. There is an obligatory courtroom scene that offers a big improvised speech by the hero, but it has so much predictability written on it that it fails to be effective from the get-go.
While the large ensemble cast is varied but accomplished, Carrey is the one who really does some fine work here. His choice of non-comic projects continues to impress me, and, ironically, he is starting to emerge as a premiere dramatic actor. Watch as he carries on a conversation with a toy monkey à la James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, or when he attempts to remember a catchy tune on the piano for the first time. He isn't just working the crowd at a comedy club here; he's working the camera and he's working us. It's an effortless transition which we're happy to oblige.
