For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This has to be the most deceptive movie ever made. On initial viewing it appears to be simply a quaint, sweet and beautiful movie, but with no real depth. I will blame my lack of perception for this. I had to watch it again and again to properly get it, and enjoyed and appreciated it more each time. This is a film that makes people the stars. Not plot, excitement, romance or derring-do This is about how essentially, decent people, with different objectives and lifestyles can come together and reach a common good. The interactions are brilliantly portrayed, and what would appear initially as not much going on, is actually human beings really respecting who the others are and allowing them their eccentricities and personalities without judgement. It is telling us that we need outside stimulus nowhere near as much as we need each other. This means that in every scene, no matter how subdued, it is actually reaching far deeper than an exciting, though contrived action sequence would ever do. Bill Forsyth says to the audience. There isn't any need for real drama, just let people come together and watch them tell the story. This they do, to powerful effect, and when combined with a witty script, beautiful music and stunning scenery, you end up with quite simply, a superb creation.

Throw open the dictionary to the word 'likable' and there's "Local Hero". Or at least it should be, seeing as this movie is the very definition of the word. None of the laughs are ostentatious; they come about organically, mostly from everyday working people and great characterization. It's small town life in an almost otherworldly seaside village; a place where even a city clicker from Big Oil can lose himself. You can tell these characters were created with love and that's exactly where the movie derives its charm. And it features an ending that's deceptively melancholy. But don't let that fool you; this is one enriching movie indeed.8/10 Also, how 'bout a hand for Denis Lawson? Wedge almost steals the whole thing!

This is a lovely film that comes out of nowhere and captures your imagination. Films of the same ilk are Trout Fishing in the Yemen, Waking Ned Devine, the Decoy Bride, and Field of Dreams. If you like these, you will like this film. It takes a subject of little interest to most, the capitalization of an isolated village in Scotland for profit, and because of brilliant characterization and dialog, creates something lasting that you can comment on 25 years after you watched it for the first time. I don't know why I chose to see this move initially. I do know why I rank it as one of my favorite films. The soundtrack is haunting, with Mark Knoffler at his creative prime. The characters are truly unique, the script natural and intelligent. I loved seeing a senior Burt Lancaster at his very best. That is saying something for a man that stole the scenes in so many great films over his career. The scenery is spectacular and filmed in such a way to convey the both the harshness and the vulnerability of Northern Scotland. - Daryl P.

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey Bill Forsyth directs "Local Hero", one of several films released in the early 1980s credited with rekindling the British film industry. The plot? A gang of big city oilmen attempt to buy up an idyllic Scottish village with the hopes of turning the location into a hotbed of commercial exploitation. One by one this gang convinces our lovable Scottish locals to sell and give up their property, but are stopped in their tracks by an elderly oddball named Ben Knox. Ben refuses to move.The film stars an ageing Burt Lancaster as Felix Happer, the chairman of the oil corporation. His henchman is Mac MacIntyre, played by Peter Riegert. Both men go to Scotland with the hopes of laying the foundations for dredging, but come away with a deep appreciation for Scotland instead. It's an archetypal anti-urban, anti-corporation comedy, our yuppie, big city slickers falling for the beauty of nature, community, the allure of life in the slow lane and the charms of rural countrysides. If this all sounds familiar ("Cars", "Doc Hollywood", "Mr Deeds Goes To Town", "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but came Down a Mountain", Powell and Pressburger's "I Know Where I'm Going" etc) its because it is, but Forsyth's style is unusual and he delivers the tale as best as it been done.Much of the film watches as the villagers become bewitched with the idea of becoming rich. As their greed grows, MacIntyre begins to shed his materialistic lifestyle. His changes are subtle, and conveyed visually: he stops wearing a tie, he stops wearing a suit altogether, he starts drinking with locals etc. This gentle, affectionate tone permeates the entire film. Forsyth slowly draws out the peculiarities and graces of both his rural folk and city folk and aided by musician Mark Knopfler, creates a mystical quality, a superb sense of location, and memorably contrasts Houston, Texan and Scottish skylines, the latter of which is beautifully enhanced by the Aurora Borealis.Films like this were a dime a dozen in the 80s, reacting against the oil boom, Reaganism, Thatcherism and rise in Yuppie and Wall Street chic. It's one of those films which words like "feel-good", "sentimental" and "heartwarming" are routinely applied to, complete with a fantasy ending in which oil barons stop dredging and start saving communities. This fantasy, of course, does not correlate with our world. Big Oil murders for money and has no moral compass whatsoever. "Local Hero's" style, however, is very special; Michael Mann meets Ken Loach and an 80s synth band. Ironically, Forsyth would give up film directing after finding experiences working in Hollywood to be soulless, greedy and distasteful. He'd retire to the countryside.8.5/10 – Worth two viewings.