THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE (1994) ** It was a pretty good idea, but they couldn't quite decide whether to make a satirical comedy or a historical drama. Both have wonderful possibilities, the middle ground is...what the middle ground usually is. Nigel Hawthorne chortles and sputters like a cold car with an English accent, but even in his most bullying moments doesn't strike me as too particularly regal or intimidating. It's easy to see how he gets dominated by a frustrated preacher who hasn't read Shakespeare but thinks he knows it all about psychology. Far more interesting is the treatment, however superficial, of Charles James Fox (played seedily by Jim Carter)-a true visionary who wanted to rid the world of slaves, royals, capitalist exploiters, and insufferable snits like the turncoat Pitt the Younger. If you're doing a comedy about delusional royalty don't make them sympathetic like bag people under the bridge; if you do a historical drama about the tragedy of a mind turned and tormented why accent the perversely humorous aspects of dementia?
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