WRITER-director Frank Darabont had the Midas touch - everything he touched turned to box office gold.

His first two pictures, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, delighted audiences and were justly showered with Oscar nominations.

Alas, Darabont's streak appears to have ended with his latest feature, a tale of shattered innocence set during the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s.

The Majestic is a dreamy evocation of small-town Americana and the enduring power of the human spirit.

You will need a very sweet tooth, however, to stomach floods of syrupy sentimentality which engulf the final 30 minutes.

Screenwriter Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey) is blacklisted on suspicion of being a Communist and is asked to testify against his peers before a Senate committee hearing.

But he is involved in a freak car accident and suffers amnesia.

Peter turns up in a close-knit Californian town where he is mistaken for Luke Trimble, a long-lost Second World War hero presumed missing for the past eight years.

Luke's father, Harry (Martin Landau), who owns the town's rundown movie theatre, welcomes back his boy with open arms.

Confused, yet willing to believe he really is Luke, Peter tries to rebuild his life and falls in love with his alter-ego's sweetheart, Adele Stanton.

The past invariably catches up with Peter.

DS