Stars: Jim Carrey, Bob Balaban, Jeffrey DeMunn, Hal Holbrook, Laurie Holden, Martin Landau, Bruce Campbell, Ron Rifkin, David Ogden Stiers, David Ogden Stiers

Director: Frank Darabont

Summary: A Hollywood writer who is blacklisted for attending a Communist meeting during his college life suffers depression and ends up in a car accident. He is washed up on a beach near a town where sixty-two of its sons were lost during World War II. He is mistaken for one of them and is drawn into the bosom of the town...

In THE MAJESTIC, Jim Carrey stretches his talents and proves that he can be a credible serious actor with his portrayal of Peter Appleton, a Hollywood B-movie screenwriter who is black listed during the McCarthy era. A car accident costs him his memory, and in the small coastal town where he ends up, he is mistaken for a local hero, presumed dead almost 10 years ago in the war. Unable to recall anything of his "past" in the town, Appleton not only embraces his new identity, but becomes a pillar of the community, restoring hope that the residents lost along with many of their young men in World War II. In the process, he discovers new inspiration, new purpose, and a new life.
Director Frank Darabont, true to form, tells a leisurely tale of a man's renewed faith in himself and in others. The film is an homage to old-fashioned values and proud-to-be-an-American patriotism, studded with rock-solid performances not just by Carrey, but by film veterans Martin Landau, Hal Holbrook, and Ron Rifkin, among others. Listen as well for cameo voice overs by Garry Marshall, Matt Damon, and Carl and Rob Reiner.

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Like Frank Darabont's other movies, The Majesticattempts, and sometimes achieves, the sheer decency of classic American movies. A cross between The Music Manand The Return of Martin Guerre, it is the film about McCarthyism that Frank Capra might have made if he had not drifted to the populist Right. An amnesiac screen-writer (Jim Carrey) is mistaken for a missing war-hero and becomes the force that reinvigorates a town distraught over its dead young men. The film is so caught up in a pastel-coloured elegiac celebration of small-town life that it at times loses pace altogether and not even Jim Carrey can quite pull it back up to its natural speed. On the other hand, his underplaying of the climactic confrontation with the House Un-American Affairs Committee--his career is at risk because he once followed a girlfriend to a political meeting--is admirable; we believe in his conversion from cynicism to heroism because he is even quieter than Jimmy Stewart in Mister Smith Goes to Washingtonmode. Martin Landau is a little too lovable as the grieving father who persuades Carrey of his identity, Laurie Holden not quite convincing as the woman for whom he falls.

On the DVD:The Majesticon disc is presented in 1.85:1 visual aspect ratio with crisp, clear visuals that sometimes make us gasp at the complex realism of the period details and has an attractive Dolby 5.1 stereo acoustic. Extras include some deleted scenes, the trailer and an extended sequence from Sand Pirates of the Sahara, the witty B-movie pastiche that crops up at a couple of important moments in the plot. --Roz Kaveney

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Seven Deleted Scenes, Sand Pirates Movie, Theatrical Trailer
Year:	2001
Release Date:	September 30, 2002
Runtime:	146 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 022119
Keywords:	General, Wide, Screen, Majestic, Drama
Genre:	Drama