By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 14, 2019)

Local Hero – Spirit Entertainment (Region “B” Blu-ray)

This magical, wonderfully droll and observant 1983 social satire from Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth has been on my Blu-ray wish list for many years. I was beginning to despair that I was waiting in vain for “someone” to do a restoration/HD upgrade…and bam! Two studios simultaneously release 2K digital restorations on Blu-ray in 2019 (more on my dilemma in a moment).

Peter Reigert is perfectly cast as Macintyre, a Texas-based executive who is assigned by the head of “Knox Oil & Gas” (Burt Lancaster) to scope out a sleepy Scottish hamlet that sits on the edge of an oil-rich bay. He is to negotiate with all the local property owners and essentially buy out the entire town so that the company can build a huge refinery.

While he considers himself “more of a Telex man”, who would prefer to knock out such an assignment “in an afternoon”, Mac sees the overseas trip as a possible fast track for a promotion within the corporation. As this quintessential 80s Yuppie works to ingratiate himself with the unhurried locals (quite impatiently at first), a classic “fish out of water” transformation ensues. It’s the kindest and gentlest Ugly American tale you’ve ever seen.

Full disclosure: I can only base my assessment of image quality on the disc that I own, which is from the UK outfit Spirit Entertainment (please note it is Region “B” locked). As mentioned earlier, this is a new 2K restoration, and it’s breathtaking (it’s a beautiful looking film to begin with).

Now, the “other” studio who has put out an edition of the film is The Criterion Collection. I have not viewed their edition, but based on their product description, I can safely assume that their 2K transfer is from the same recently struck restoration. Both editions have good extra features (several of them duplicate), but what swayed me to the Spirit Entertainment version was a new 2019 interview with Mark Knopfler (which the Criterion edition does not contain) discussing his classic soundtrack.