Local Hero

1983
PG
1h 51m

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

28K

YOUR RATING

Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert in Local Hero (1983)

An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.

Play trailer2:25

1 Video

65 Photos

Comedy Drama

An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

28K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 1 BAFTA Award
- 4 wins & 6 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:25

Official Trailer

Photos65

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
After the movie came out, many people went in search of the village with the red phone booth. It can be found in the village of Pennan on the Moray Coast, Scotland.

Goofs
Marina and Danny are looking at what Marina says are grey seals but which are Californian fur seals, which aren't native to Scotland.

Quotes
Mac: [desperate to make the deal] Look, how much do you want?
Ben: [fills his hands with sand] Would you pay me a pound for every grain of sand in my hand?
[drops some sand]
Ben: Ah, well, that saves you some. Well, would you do it?
Mac: No. Of course not.
Ben: Ah, well that's a pity. You missed out on a good bargain, for I can only hold about ten thousand grains of sand in my hands. Did you think it would be more?

Alternate versions
CBS edited 14 minutes from this film for its 1987 network television premiere.

Connections
Featured in Century of Cinema: A Personal History of British Cinema by Stephen Frears (1995)

Soundtracks
Local Hero
by Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits)

User reviews276

Featured review

8/10

Minor Classic

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.