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starring: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay, Denis Lawson, Norman Chancerdirected by: Bill Forsyth
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786304437025
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
ISBN: 6304437021
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: July 22, 1994
Running Time: 111 minutes
Sales Rank: 11745
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: February 17, 1983
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
When Mac MacIntyre (played with deadpan perfection by Peter Riegert) is sent by his star-gazing, slightly insane Knox Oil and Gas boss (Burt Lancaster) to Scotland's West Coast to buy the rights to a seaside town slated to be the site of an oil refinery, Mac embarks on his journey reluctantly. 'Why do I have to go to all the way to Scotland?' Mac complains to a coworker. 'I'm really more of a Telex man.' But on the way to closing the deal, a funny thing happens: the place takes root in Mac. The town's eccentric inhabitants, eventful night sky, and stunning scenery soak into his psyche and combine to bring a very different Mac to the surface, a Mac who collects seashells, walks on the beach in his jeans instead of his suit, and throws his calendar watch, beeping 'meeting time in Houston,' into the sea.
Mac eventually vies to switch places with Gordon Urquhart--accountant, bartender, innkeeper, and community representative in the land deal. After an evening spent drinking 42-year-old scotch ('old enough to be out on its own,' Mac chirps, and then laughs smugly at his own joke) and negotiating the real estate deal, Mac tries to negotiate a deal for himself--to trade his high-rise Houston apartment, Porsche, and oil-company job for Urquhart's less traditional, but more fulfilling, life.
The plot runs along almost as if behind the scenes, and the characters are intriguing, but the real appeal here is the incisive yet gentle humor. During a visit to a Knox Oil lab, Mac is shown into a room that contains a miniature of the town he has been sent to purchase. The head of the lab says, 'Welcome to our little world,' and then gives Mac the plastic replica of the town as a souvenir. 'Dream large,' he intones. The irony's easy to miss and is just one example of the intelligent presence--in the form of writer and director Bill Forsyth--working behind the scenes here.
Mark Knopfler's delicate, haunting soundtrack complements the sometimes melancholy, sometimes hilarious currents of Local Hero to perfection. --Stefanie Durbin
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The chill behind the warmth.
I have read around thirty of the reviews written for this film and all of them describe it as warm, witty, endearing, and gentle. All of which is, on the surface, true. The film can be appreciated for those qualities. But there is also a real darkness at the heart of this movie that seems to have somehow escaped most viewers. It is suggested most blatantly at the beginning in the short publicity film we see for Knox Oil. It is suggested further by the power Happer is demonstrated to have by virtue ... Read More
Rating: - After 20+ years, never fails to make me smile
Like some of the other reviewers, when this movie came out I was fresh out of college with that misguided sense of ambition that characterized our generation. We were supposed to admire and emulate people like MacIntyre, the stereotype 80s corporate over-achiever, although like him, many of us also figured out that there were more important things in life. However, this is one of my very favorite movies for several reasons beyond the generational aspect: the dry Gaelic wit, the understated performances, ... Read More
Rating: - It is written in the stars
What do you get when you have an oil tycoon and a young businessman wanting to change a sleepy village into the "petrol capital of the free world?" The 1983 enchanting film, LOCAL HERO, written and directed by Bill Forsyth and produced by David Puttnam who is best known for CHARIOTS OF FIRE. This film is not as epic as the previous, but rather a contemporary and quiet respite from all the extravagance displayed in FIRE.
Burt Lancaster plays the executive of Knox Oil and Gas, Felix Happer, ... Read More
Rating: - Scotland The Brave
In my carefree 20's I took my bicycle over to the British Isles and rode all through England, Wales, and Scotland. I spent almost all that summer of '77--Queen Eliz' silver anniversary year--on my red Swallow ten-speed "pushbike", as the Brits called it, slogging it up and down and all around that sceptred isle. Though I saw a ghost in a lonely churchyard above Lynton, hit a sheep outside of Chester, saw authentic gypsies near Malton, and heard a concert in the King's College chapel in Cambridge, my fondest ... Read More
Rating:  - Worth a look...
This little-know bit of surrealist deconstruction remains poignantly relevant. Especially as the debate over the ANWR heats up, here in the US.
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