Local Hero is a perfect example of a soundtrack that, in many ways, outstrips the film it was meant to complement -- and in this case, at least, it's a pity. Which isn't to say that the score isn't absolutely wonderful. It is, or it wouldn't be listed here. I'm not normally a fan of Dire Straits or of Mark Knopfler's solo work, but the stirring, sentimental but never overdone combination of blues-influenced electric guitar, sweeping synthesizer stings, and Scottish folk music he put together is perfectly suited to the visual, narrative, and emotional arc of the movie. The soundtrack itself sold more copies than the movie sold tickets, and it became so popular amongst his fans that he began to incorporate some of its better tracks into his solo shows. It's an amazing piece of work; the pity is that the movie has, over time, become far less known.
A movie of good grace, light step, and gentle humor, which pulls at the heartstrings in an exceptionally powerful way without ever becoming expressly manipulative, Local Hero is the lost Scottish director Bill Forsyth's best film -- and his last great one, as well. It tells the story of Mac (Peter Riegert, charming as hell), an American oil and gas executive who visits a remote village on the Scottish coastline in an attempt to buy up property cheap and open it up for drilling. Complications set in, as complications do, as the locals prove both quirky and reluctant, difficult to communicate with, seductive, crammed with local color, and worst of all, incredibly friendly and accepting of the alienated Mac, who more and more begins to think that throwing all of these people out of their homes on the cheap isn't what he wants to do with his life. His dilemma lies in convincing his employer, the oil tycoon Felix Happer -- played with hilarious belligerence by Burt Lancaster in one of his best film roles -- to abandon his drilling plans, into which he's already sunk millions.
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