Local Hero

In this cynical age of image counting for all and increasingly small minded audiences being baffled by anything approaching subtlety, this film represents a much needed haven for the more cerebral viewer. It's pitch perfect lampooning of the massive gulf between supposedly similar cultures is a joy to behold over and over.

That fact that not much really happens is, in fact the whole point. It is a modern comedy of manners, the humour being in how characters react to alien situations.

It is exactly the kind of film Ealing studios would have produced had they survived into the 80's, and as such is to be praised for trying to show how simply taking an off centre look at real life can inform and entertain more eloquently than those who shout their satire from the rooftops.

All of the previous reviews of this wonderful movie have said it all. I just want to add that every time I've

seen it (and believe me that is a large number) I get choked up. In fact reading the reviews gives me the same feeling.

I find it impossible to understand the view point of those who pan this movie because of lack of plot or satisfying ending. They would throw out most of Shakespeare

because plot was always secondary to characterization in his

works.

I heartily reccomend Local Hero to anyone with a heart.

It will be touched

Yes, the summary line has been used in an attempt to qualify this entry as upbeat and interesting. But it is true, I did purchase a modular couch unit because the hero in Local Hero has a scene where he reclines in a couch while on the phone (his is cream, mine, mindful of stains is blue). This little anecdote symbolises the effect this film has had on me. I first saw it at the impressionable age of 14, and have watched it pretty much on an annual basis ever since.

I don't know how, or why it has proved such an hypnotic film, maybe it is due to the fact that there is not a sordid event in sight, that every scene reamains soft and innocent, without becoming fantasy. It could all happen, to me, or you and it is totally unthreatening. Not a fist fight, mugging, or domestically violent vision to behold. The film is like a memorable weekend where you know you've experienced something special.

You have to set the right mood, this film is definately a red wine with candles film, not one of the beer and pizza variety.

There's the great movies with a capital "M" (Casablanca, Strangelove, Kane) and then there's the great movies which feel like they've been made for the deepest, quietest, quirkiest parts of you and you alone - the small gems. And this one, in my view, is the sparkliest of these gems - a little masterpiece of a rumination on just how beautiful things can be when disparate paths in life intercept each other just the tiniest bit out of phase, never perfectly according to plan, and on how the deepest transformations seem to proceed from the smallest disjoints of orientation and expectation. It is a beautiful dollhouse of a film, whose success lies in its excruciating attention to and understatement of detail. Beautiful Mark Knopler strains suffuse the film's quieter moments, while subtle performances and simply lovely dialogue provide the backbone.

Oddly enough, from the comments thus far about the film, nobody, as in not a single viewer, has commented on the absolutely stunning performance by Peter Riegert. It is the best of right on low key performances of all time: if somebody told him that leprosy had just overtaken the island he might have batted one eyelash. Yet no matter how low the key it is never off key. And yes, yes, it has a lot of other things going for it, but nothing like his performance. Somehow the director got the right guy for the job, so much so, that it is impossible to conjure anybody in all Hollywood that could have done so well. Moreover, the movie moves about him so tightly, and he takes the load so effortlessly, it is almost not surprising that nobody has noticed just how good he is here. In fact were there even a smidgen of fireworks from him, this would just be another movie. Time is gonna treat this film very well, when ninety percent of most films are forgotten, this will continue to rise in the ranks of the remembered.