Local Hero
Dir: Bill Forsyth
1983
****
Bill Forsyth's Local Hero is a funny little film. Whimsical, charming and odd but odd in the best possible way. Many Anglo-American projects don't work but I think this works because it doesn't work, there is certainly something serendipitous about it anyway. The leading performances by Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson and a very impressive young Peter Capaldi (who I see on my Train on the way to work most mornings) are fantastic but it's Burt Lancaster who really steals the show in one of my favourite comedy performances of all time. Any predictability is made up for with an exceptionally witty script. Charming as hell and the epitome of likable. Bill Forsyth's films are almost in their own genre, this being a good example of his fine work.