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| A glorious, cinematic kiss stretched across the night sky over an amazing-looking cinema on the poster for Frank Darabont's The Majestic |
An upcoming Hollywood screenwriter, who is targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s, has an accident in which he hits his head. He wakes up in an ideal small town community, Lawson, California, where he is wrongfully recognized as a lost World War II soldier.
The Majestic is written by Michael Sloane (Hollywood Boulevard II (1990)) and directed by French-American master filmmaker Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption (1994)), whose 3rd feature it is.
Jim Carrey (Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011)) and Laurie Holden (Dead Man's Gun (1997, TV-series)) are fine in Darabont's exceptionally handsome production, a film that feels like it could just as well have been made in 1960 with James Stewart in the lead. Bob Balaban (No Reservations (2007)) makes a good villain; David Ogden Stiers (Lilo & Stitch (2002)) makes a good doctor, - but it is Martin Landau (Delta Fever (1987)) as Carrey's 'father', who stands out and activates our tear canals more than once in an awards-worthy turn.
The fine story here, which keeps one guessing, is told in a pace that is too leisurely at times. But it is a joy to watch a film done with style, panache and craftsmanship, obviously made without the (in major studio fare especially) normalized consideration that major sequences be accomplished during post production. It can be seen as well as felt.
Landau's speech in favor of the title-named theater over smaller screens is eminent. The Majestic is a Movie (capital letter very much intended) that develops in such a way that one almost can't imagine that it will end 'well'. - And yet it does, SPOILER with a court room scene that just about rewrites J. Edgar Hoover's communist witch-hunt, or at least strikes it back by Hollywood, in the guise of Carrey, counterfactually. Regrettably the ending still gets botched a bit, as the filmmakers inhale even more wind into The Majestic's already ballooned construction by having Carrey return to an exaggerated, somewhat absurd salutation in Lawson.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 72 mil. $
Box office: 37.3 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.51 times its cost)
[The Majestic premiered 11 December (USA) and runs 152 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, from March - June 2001. The film opened #8 to a 4.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it did not peak higher in subsequent weekends and grossed 27.8 mil. $ (74.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were, with some uncertainty, Japan with 5.3 mil. $ (14.2 %) and Spain with 444k $ (1.9 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Darabont returned with Raines (2007, TV-series), The Shield (2007, TV-series) and theatrically with The Mist (2007). Carrey returned in Bruce Almighty (2003). The Majestic is rotten at 42 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Majestic?
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