Local Hero is a 1983 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and produced by David Puttnam. It stars Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster, Denis Lawson, Peter Capaldi, and Fulton Mackay. Riegert plays an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and surrounding property for his company. The musical score was composed by Mark Knopfler.
Plot[]
"Mac" MacIntyre is an aspiring executive working for Knox Oil and Gas in Houston, Texas. Felix Happer, the company's eccentric owner, chooses Mac because of his Scottish sounding surname to acquire Ferness, a village in the Scottish Highlands, to make way for a refinery. Mac, actually of Hungarian extraction, is apprehensive about the assignment, complaining to a co-worker that he would rather handle business over the phone and via telex. Happer, an avid amateur astronomer, tells Mac to watch the sky and to notify him immediately if he sees anything unusual.
Arriving in Scotland, Mac teams up with local Knox representative Danny Oldsen. When they visit a Knox research facility in Aberdeen, Dr Geddes explains the plan to replace Ferness with the refinery. They also meet marine researcher Marina.
Mac spends several days in Ferness, gradually adapting to the slower-paced life and getting to know the residents, most notably hotel owner and accountant Gordon Urquhart and his wife Stella. Mac becomes more and more conflicted as he presses to close the deal that will demolish the village he has come to love. The villagers, however, are tired of their hard life and are more than eager to sell, though they feign indifference to induce a larger offer. Mac receives encouragement from an unlikely source: Victor, a capitalistic Soviet fishing boat captain who periodically visits his friends in Ferness and checks on his investment portfolio, managed by Gordon.
Meanwhile, Danny befriends Marina, who is under the impression that the company is planning to build a research centre at Ferness. During a date, he discovers that Marina, who seems more at home in the water than on land, has webbed toes. While watching some grey seals, Danny mentions that sailors used to believe they were mermaids. Marina tells him the sailors were wrong.
Meanwhile, in the United States of America, Happer grows gradually disillusioned with his therapist, whose “treatment” involves showering Happer with a continuous torrent of verbal abuse. The therapist continues to obsessively harass and verbally abuse Happer, at first over the phone, eventually climbing up several storeys to reach Happer’s office where he attempts to plaster the words “Happer, you’re a motherfucker” onto the window, whereupon Happer tells his secretary to call the police, and tell them to shoot the therapist off the window of the building. He then prepares to leave for Scotland.
As the deal nears completion, Gordon discovers that Ben Knox, an old beachcomber who lives in a driftwood shack on the shore, owns the beach through a grant from the Lord of the Isles to his ancestor. MacIntyre tries everything to entice Ben to sell, even offering enough money to buy any other beach in the world, but the owner is content with what he has. Ben picks up some sand and offers to sell for the same number of pound notes as he has grains of sand in his hand. A suspicious MacIntyre declines, only to be told there could not have been more than ten thousand grains.
Happer finally arrives on site, just in time to unknowingly forestall a potential confrontation between some of the villagers and Ben. When Mac informs him of the snag in the proceedings, he decides to negotiate personally with Ben and, in the process, discovers a kindred spirit. Happer opts to relocate the refinery offshore and set up an astronomical observatory instead. He sends MacIntyre home to implement the changes. Danny brings up Marina's dream of an oceanographic research facility and suggests combining the two into the "Happer Institute", an idea that Happer likes. A sombre MacIntyre returns to his apartment in Houston. He pulls from his pocket pebbles and shells and spreads them out on the work surface. The local phone box in Ferness starts ringing.
Cast[]
- Peter Riegert as "Mac" MacIntyre
- Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer
- Fulton Mackay as Ben Knox
- Denis Lawson as Gordon Urquhart
- Norman Chancer as Moritz
- Peter Capaldi as Danny Oldsen
- Rikki Fulton as Geddes
- Alex Norton as Watt
- Jenny Seagrove as Marina
- Jennifer Black as Stella Urquhart
- Christopher Rozycki as Victor
- Christopher Asante as Reverend Macpherson
- John Gordon Sinclair as Ricky
- Caroline Guthrie as Pauline
- John M. Jackson as Cal (as John Jackson)
- Jimmy Yuill as Iain
- Tam Dean Burn as Roddy
- Sandra Voe as Mrs. Fraser
- Jonathan Watson as Jonathan