The Majestic (2001)

Directed by Frank Darabont. Starring Jim Carrey, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, David Ogden Stiers, Gerry Black, Jeffrey DeMunn, James Whitmore, Catherine Dent, Karl Bury, Brian Howe, Allen Garfield, Ron Rifkin, Hal Holbrook, Bob Balaban, Brent Briscoe, Chelcie Ross, Amanda Detmer. [PG]

Lead-footed, old-fashioned “feel-good” drama suffocates the viewer in sentiment and sanctimony while celebrating an America that sadly never was and criticizing a Hollywood that sadly still is. Carrey is an up-and coming screenwriter in the early-50s who’s accused of being a communist, and after a night of heavy drinking, he drives his car off a bridge and wakes up in a Capra-esque small town where he’s mistaken for the long-missing G.I. son of Landau’s local, a ruse the writer participates in to spare the feelings of the old man and the rest of the town. How he could be so easily mistaken for someone who’s intimately known by everyone in town is a fantasy element you either buy or you don’t (too much of a struggle for me); before that, the pic started on solid footing in Tinsel Town (replete with a most-welcome cameo from Bruce Campbell as a B-movie star—what range!), but it bogs down in a hurry after the accident, and not only does the movie never recover, but it seems to get worse and worse with each passing minute. Moves slow enough to make Meet Joe Black look like Crank, and is so interminably heavy-handed and simple-minded, it’s like having an ox named Nostalgia sitting on your chest for more than two hours. Even those who embrace the message and don’t mind poorly-manufactured pseudo-sincerity are likely to become bored by how inert and unchallenging the film is, and how hard it is to swallow anything that happens during the last thirty or forty minutes. Trapped somewhere beneath all the treacle is a worthy love letter to the silver screen and the magic of historic movie houses, but the effort needed to shovel down deep enough to get there isn’t worth it. Several filmmakers make voice cameos (Rob & Carl Reiner, Paul Mazursky, etc.), as does Matt Damon; Cliff Curtis appears in the flesh alongside Bruce Campbell in a black & white swashbuckler.

27/100