Peter Reigart is the main star of this movie - although Burt Lancaster has a supporting role - and most of the other actors are unknowns. It is about a guy who works for a big oil company in Dallas who is sent to make a deal to buy an entire town on the coast of Scotland. He becomes involved in the lives of the locals who are charmingly eccentric - with a serious streak not to be ignored. This is NOT a comedy, not a tragedy, just a nice story that moves along and is well acted and written
A classic small film by Scotish director Bill Forsyth, "Local Hero" is the story of Big Oil and the small Scottish village whose harbor it wants to buy. Full of deadpan takes on loveable eccentrics, the ensemble cast (led by Burt Lancaster, a star-gazing oil executive) plays out a whimsical, detailed meditation on greed, solitude, small town politics and pleasures, the importance of place--and the mystery of trying to find one's place in the world. It's a kind of "Shangri-La" meets "Twin Peaks." Forsyth's fondness for the odd and arbitrary (there's a beautiful marine biologist with webbed toes) is gently unsettling and keeps this from becoming a simple morality play of us versus them, as the film deftly tacks between the real and the fantastic. In fact, its generous but never predictable heart makes what starts out like a light parable into something as richly complicated and elusive as a dream. "Local Hero" is a precise and haunting film--one that gets better each time you watch it. It's unfortunate that Forsyth, afer directing several other highly original features ("Comfort and Joy," "Housekeeping," "Breaking In"), has stopped making movies. He appears convinced that movies are just not important enough to transcend their most common and commercial aims--to entertain through the manipulation of shallow emotions and ideas. This loss of faith in the medium has led to sporadic television work and a sense that the melancholy in his work is perhaps very much his own. At any rate, it's our loss.Read full review
I remember that movie "Local Hero" DVD back in 1999 and it was a great movie. So laid and lazy, enjoy beach, sky and all that....you get so much fun, fun, and fun. Everybody drinks! Love that location. You got to watch it. :-)
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
For some reason I've always liked this film there's no car chase scenes, No passionate love scenes, an ending with no great revelations, a pretty mundane film. Sort of like life maybe that's why it's so good?
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Bought the movie because I love the Local Hero song performed by Phil Coulter in the Celtic Thunder. I had never seen the movie before. The scenery was wonderful and the I felt like I was right there with the actors in a small community in Scotland. Plot was a little underdeveloped, but I still enjoyed the movie very much. All the actors were such likable characters. I felt like I got to know each one and that no one was an extra. A simpler place and time was very appealing. And of course the fantastic background theme music Local Hero was haunting and enjoyable.
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