Local Hero (1983)

I went into Local Hero with pretty much no knowledge about it at all. I knew it came very highly recommended by critics and was well loved but I knew nothing of what the film was actually about. From the title I thought it could be a story of someone doing something extraordinary for a community they lived in, say for example like saving them from attack. The reality is very different and much much better.

This is the story of an Oil Company (Knox Oil) attempting to buy a small coastal village in Scotland in order to build an oil refinery there to make more oil. In a slight twist of convention, the village actually wants to sell as they know that they can get some pretty decent money for it from the rich American company. It emerges later that there is only one person who does not wish to sell, but that isn't a point of conflict. In Fact this film is best described as nice. The Americans who come over to the village fall in love with it and its charms, though they would still go through with the deal if they could, and the village bands together for a common cause.

I was very intrigued by the film for another reason too. Peter Capaldi. Best known to me as Shouty Sweary Malcolm Tucker from Televisions 'The Thick of It' and the movie spin off 'In The Loop', I am used to seeing Capaldi with a vein throbbing in his forehead and being quite nasty most of the time, and very funny all of the time. It came as a shock then to see him playing basically the opposite character here. Oldsen is a young businessman, eager to please and help out, who also has a strong crush on a lady who works for the company designing the oil refinery. We see him spending lots of time contemplating what they are doing and smiling, two things You would never catch Malcolm Tucker doing. It is a credit to Peter Capaldi then that after a couple of scenes you put thoughts of his sweary past (or rather future) to the back of your mind and believe that he is who he says he is here. 

The rest of the cast are great too, and bring a real warmth to the film. Burt Lancaster plays the head of Knox Oil, initially intent on the purchase of land for oil usage, but who throughout the film has an obsession with nature, and most importantly the night sky. In fact most of the characters in this film have a whistful love for things that don't feature in their lives at the time. The American delegate sent to Scotland wishes he could transform his life and move to Scotland, the people of the village wish for a lifestyle with fast cars and lots of money, in fact the only person who seems content with his life is a man who lives on the beach in a shack with no door.

This is a curious film, but it is lovingly made, with enough humour in it to fit the mood, and you leave feeling very satisfied, as though it is possible to achieve contentment in life, if you only knew to look a little outside your comfort zone.