Tonight I began watching The Majestic as I was ironing clothes. I have to say that while this movie has potential, as a writer, upset at his sudden blacklisting from Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist hearing times, leaves L.A. one night in a depressed stupor, crashes, and lands without a memory of his former life in a little town along the coast. The town determines that he’s a long-lost son of a local who never returned from World War II, and celebrates him, all while the FBI determines that he’s even more of a concern than they originally expect.
Sounds like a fairly solid drama story line, yet the film suffers from what I’ll label the “Beat Joe Black” syndrome: a production team that, unwilling to make decisions about what should and shouldn’t be cut or rewritten, decides to include nearly everything. And this ends up bogging down what is otherwise a potentially solid storyline. Certainly it’s more than most plots, and the quality of actors aren’t terrible either. It’s a shame to see such a waste of a good movie.