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THE MAJESTIC Send This Review to a Friend
Although an unabashedly hokey movie that makes a Frank Capra opus seem like film noir, "The Majestic" has one thing going for it--timeliness. Jim Carrey plays a newly blacklisted B-picture screenwriter in the early 1950s during the reign of McCarthyism and when he finally appears before the witch-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee, he delivers a rousing reminder of what the Constitution is all about and a rebuff to those who would curtail our freedoms. In these days of threats against our liberties at home in waging the war against terrorism the film's message rings an alarm bell and recalls the battles different generations of civil libertarians have had to wage.
Unfortunately what leads up to this stand on principle is steeped in pure corn. Carrrey plays Peter Appleton, the writer suspected (wrongly) of being a Communist as a result of having attended a meeting during his college days of an organization later accused of having been subversive. Deeply upset, he accidentally drives off a bridge one night and disappears. He washes ashore, but the accident has left him without any memory of who he is. The California townspeople mistake him for a fallen World War II hero, and he gets a whole new life, including a new girl, the pining Adele (Laurie Holden), who accepts that the newcomer is the boyfriend she assumed was killed. If you can believe all of this up to this point, you deserve a Medal of Gullibility.
But that's just the warm-up. We're taken through all of the adulation, the love affair, the role Appleton plays in the rejuvenation of a dilapidated movie house and meeting a collection of cliched town-folk. We, of course, know that the expose must come, along with the town's disillusionment, especially when Appleton is identified as a dangerous Commie, apprehended and called before the committee. And just as sure as morning follows night you know that good old Appleton will turn the situation around and earn the town's undying pride for speaking up so boldly for true American values. Is there any doubt that he gets the girl, this time as himself?
Carrey has the aura of decency needed to carry off the role, and there are a few good supporting performances, including those of Allen Garfield as Appleton's agent and Ron Rifkin as the lawyer representing the movie studio for which the accused wrote, both of whom crassly want Appleton to repent and name whatever names are handed to him as the price of his clearance. Bob Balaban is effective as the majority counsel for the Committee. But oh that impossible screenplay by Michael Sloane! Director Frank Darabont directs as if trying to pay homage to Capra at his most saccharine.
"The Majestic" does aim some amusing barbs at Hollywood by means of outlandish script conferences at the beginning and end. And there is the virtue of Appleton's heroic speech. Too few films have dealt with this horrid Hollywood period--Woody Allen's "The Front" was particularly strong--so one hates to be ungrateful, especially at a time like this. But unfortunately, despite the way the hero makes mincemeat of the oppressive Committee, "The Majestic" is likely to generate more ridicule than inspiration for courage. A Warner Brothers release.
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