Local Hero is one of the true gems: a wicked little movie that sneaks up on you with its little truths that seems frightfully large when you ponder them. The plot summary is available anywhere: boy goes to buy foreign land and falls in love with foreign land.
Peter Riegert, better known these days as corrupt Assemblyman Zellman in `The Sopranos,' is Mac, an anxious, highly wired (`I need electricity.') oil company bargainer sent to northern Scotland to purchase an entire town & environs for his company's North Sea oil project. He is initially put off by the town's unorthodox habits: his bargaining opponent (caddish Denis Lawson) is the local CPA, runs the bed & breakfast where Mac is staying, & `doubles as a cab driver;' & Mac discovers that an ageing beachcomber actually owns his beach.
Mac just wants to close the sale & go home; the townsfolk want to close the sale too (` face the fact that you're gonna be filthy rich.'), but their excessive charm & good nature gradually draw Mac into their collective bosom.
Whereas too many movies want to be novels (preferably the agonizing `War and Peace'), Local Hero is a kind of short story; whereas too many directors place their loud symbols out there for characters to rally round, director Bill Forsyth's characters produce the symbols. Mac's inability to maintain a long-distance phone connection with his office is symbolic of his gradual cutting of ties with his life in Texas (of course, he isn't even a native Texan). When Cal (`You've only been gone a day.') hangs up the phone after losing a connection with Mac, you know Mac is gone. But if you miss that, there's always the singing watch (`Meeting time in Texas.') drowning in the tide: incredible!
Mark Knopfler's soundtrack winds tightly thru the movie: the final phone booth (a symbol of both connection & distance) image as the closing theme thunders in always makes me shudder. There's also the cadre of wonderfully quirky characters: Happer (Burt Lancaster), the dreamy, stargazing V.P. of Knox Oil & Gas; Moritz, his incompetent therapist (`Look at me, Mr. Happer: I'm not married!'); Ben Knox (`Did you say Knox?'), the beachcombing ersatz astronomer; Rev. Macpherson, the African missionary (`I'm not Scottish either.'); and Oldsen, Mac's counterpart in Scotland. If you'd like some quiet enlightenment with solid entertainment, pick up this early 80s classic.
Peter Riegert, better known these days as corrupt Assemblyman Zellman in `The Sopranos,' is Mac, an anxious, highly wired (`I need electricity.') oil company bargainer sent to northern Scotland to purchase an entire town & environs for his company's North Sea oil project. He is initially put off by the town's unorthodox habits: his bargaining opponent (caddish Denis Lawson) is the local CPA, runs the bed & breakfast where Mac is staying, & `doubles as a cab driver;' & Mac discovers that an ageing beachcomber actually owns his beach.
Mac just wants to close the sale & go home; the townsfolk want to close the sale too (` face the fact that you're gonna be filthy rich.'), but their excessive charm & good nature gradually draw Mac into their collective bosom.
Whereas too many movies want to be novels (preferably the agonizing `War and Peace'), Local Hero is a kind of short story; whereas too many directors place their loud symbols out there for characters to rally round, director Bill Forsyth's characters produce the symbols. Mac's inability to maintain a long-distance phone connection with his office is symbolic of his gradual cutting of ties with his life in Texas (of course, he isn't even a native Texan). When Cal (`You've only been gone a day.') hangs up the phone after losing a connection with Mac, you know Mac is gone. But if you miss that, there's always the singing watch (`Meeting time in Texas.') drowning in the tide: incredible!
Mark Knopfler's soundtrack winds tightly thru the movie: the final phone booth (a symbol of both connection & distance) image as the closing theme thunders in always makes me shudder. There's also the cadre of wonderfully quirky characters: Happer (Burt Lancaster), the dreamy, stargazing V.P. of Knox Oil & Gas; Moritz, his incompetent therapist (`Look at me, Mr. Happer: I'm not married!'); Ben Knox (`Did you say Knox?'), the beachcombing ersatz astronomer; Rev. Macpherson, the African missionary (`I'm not Scottish either.'); and Oldsen, Mac's counterpart in Scotland. If you'd like some quiet enlightenment with solid entertainment, pick up this early 80s classic.