Local Hero

6/8/2023

Burt Lancaster is the multi-millionaire oil magnate "Felix Happer" who despatches one of his minions (Peter Riegert) to Scotland to buy up a village to turn it into an oil refinery. Once he arrives, he is taken for a bit of a ride by the canny locals as they try to milk him for as much cash as they can. In the days before cell phones; he has to call his boss from the phone box reporting his lack of progress and some astronomical sightings until eventually Happer comes over himself and immediately strikes up a rapport with Fulton Mackay who lives on the beach (and who is steadfastly refusing to sell). It is is simple story very well told with a slightly unpredictable, happy ending and a brilliant score from Mark Knopfler.

6/20/2023

**Slow, with boring characters and dialogues and a disjointed script, this film does not justify the “hype” around it.** This is one of those indie films that has won over a legion of self-confessed admirers. It's a film that everyone speaks highly of, as if it were a solid masterpiece. I didn't know that when I saw it for the first time, so I saw it without a lot of expectations. I'm glad I did it: despite recognizing some merits, I am convinced that the film has been well overrated. The proof is the way it fell into oblivion! If we exclude fans and movie nerds who know everything (and when they don't, they make it up) who really remembers this movie? The film revolves around a story that is very simple: in the north of Scotland, there is a small bay with a beach and a sleepy villag

2/5/2026

Bill Forsyth's Local Hero sends an American oil company executive (Peter Riegert) to a remote Scottish coastal village to buy it up for a refinery. What he finds instead is a community that can't quite be bought, locals who negotiate on their own eccentric terms, and a way of life that makes his corporate ambitions seem hollow and absurd. This is gentle, quirky, humanistic filmmaking at its finest. There's no heavy-handed messaging, no villains twirling mustaches; just the quiet revelation that some things matter more than money; that community and a slower life render capitalism's promises useless. Burt Lancaster plays the oil tycoon with surprising warmth, Denis Lawson charms as the innkeeper, and Mark Knopfler's score wraps the whole thing in melancholy beauty. It's a subtle, sard