Oil billionaire Happer sends Mac to a remote Scotish villiage to secure the property rights for an oil refinery they want to build. Mac teams up with Danny and starts the negotiations, the locals are keen to get their hands on the ‘Silver Dollar’ and can’t believe their luck. However a local hermit and beach scavenger, Ben Knox, lives in a shack on the crucial beach which he also owns. Happer is more interested in the Northern Lights and Danny in a surreal girl with webbed feet, Marina. Mac is used to a Houston office with fax machines but is forced to negotiate on Bens terms. –IMDb
Bill Forsyth (born 29 July 1946, Glasgow) is a British film director and writer, noted for his commitment to national film-making.
Forsyth first came to attention with a low-budget film, That Sinking Feeling, made with youth theatre actors and featuring a cameo appearance by the Edinburgh gallery owner Richard Demarco. The relative success of the film was carried to a far higher level by his next film Gregory’s Girl in 1981. This featured some of the same young actors, in particular John Gordon Sinclair, as well as the acting debut of Clare Grogan. The film was a major hit and won ‘Best Screenplay’ in that year’s BAFTA Awards. In 1983 he wrote and directed the successful Local Hero, produced by David Puttnam, and featuring Burt Lancaster. It was rated in the top 100 films of the 1980s in a Premiere magazine recap of the decade. Forsyth’s next film was the 1984 Comfort and Joy, about a Glasgow radio DJ caught between rival ice cream companies, which again featured Clare Grogan… read more
probably one of my favourite films ever made. It doesn't feel the need to make amazing scenes, its jsut sort of becomes amazing and beautiful and l without you even realising until the indredibly powerful and representational ending. 5 stars no question.
I have never felt more serenely happy than I was after seeing this film. Whatever happened to Denis Lawson? He seems to be more famous for being Ewan McGregor's uncle than for this great performance.
Forsyth's take on the british "villiage comedy" is a quaint, fun little flim. Never gets lost in sentimentality or over-characterization. Does lack a little spark but enjoyable nonetheless. Does feel very much a product of its time period however. Riegert not bad, Lancaster well cast and Jenny Seagrove quite good as the hotelier's wife.
"To the west, there is nothing, except America." Revived at Edinburgh Internbational Film Festival, Alexander Mackendrick's first film, Whisky
Bill Forsyth’s ‘Local Hero’ is a movie with a sweet whimsy infusing every frame and is a gentle reminder of the kind of comedies the British Isles are past masters of, recalling the heyday of Ealing… read review
