The Burt Lancaster oil film with a 100% rotten score tomatoes is perfect for Landman fans

Black Gold: He made the Clampett Riche family and took them from Ozarks to Beverly Hills in “The Beverly Hillbillies”, and it’s still billionaires today. The oil was extracted for the first time for use in China more than 2000 years ago, but it exploded in the 20th century thanks to the arrival of the automobile, electric lighting and the growing demand for consumer goods made from plastic. Despite the concerns about climate change and innovations in clean and renewable energies, oil and gas production is still one of the largest industries in the world, the United States producing around 13 million barrels of crude oil per day. However, despite being a driving factor behind today’s society, there are still relatively few movies and television programs on this subject. One of the most recent to explore this vast subject is the famous “Landman” of Taylor Sheridan, the new absorbent show that explores the policy and dangers of the modern oil industry.

Billy Bob Thornton plays the role of Tommy Norris, the guy on the ground for billionaires who earn real money from oil, personified in this case by the frame of Jon Hamm, Monty Miller. As it is typical of Sheridan, “Landman” presents the industry as a particular aspect of the new American border, and the spectacle is the most fascinating when it plunges behind the scenes of a company dependent on oil and the daily difficulties of hard men like Norris.

Like many stories taking place in the oil world (as “there will be blood” and “Deepwater Horizon”), the main dramatic factors of “Landman” are capitalist and very real danger. But, as the clampetts proved in the 1960s, stories involving oil do not all need to be so rigorous. Indeed, fans of the last series of Sheridan can also take care of a lighter angle with “Local Hero” by Bill Forsyth, a British jewel with Burt Lancaster which currently holds a 100% note on Rotten Tomatoes.

Coming only two years after the golden strike at the box office with “Gregory’s Girl”, the Scottish writer and director Forsyth returned with a victory history of an American oil leader sent to acquire a picturesque Scottish village as the site of a new oil refinery. Often compared to the classic Ealing comedy “Whiskey Galore!”, “Local Hero” has become one of the most popular films in Great Britain since its release in 1983. Let’s examine the reason why he has this perfect score of rotten tomatoes.

Felix Happers (Burt Lancaster) is the eccentric owner of Knox, a huge oil and gas company in Houston, Texas. He is more interested in the cosmos than his last acquisition, but he selects the materialist executive “Mac” Macintyre (Peter Riegert) to go to Scotland and buy the tiny coastal village of Furness to make way for a really ugly oil refinery. Mac prefers to do it on the phone, but Happen insists that he goes in person to speak to his “people”, despite the fact that he is not really Scottish. Happen also gives him a secondary mission to keep an eye on the sky in the constellation of the Virgin for all comets.

Arriving in Aberdeen, Mac is greeted by Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi), a young representative of Callow Knox. During a brief judgment in a Knox research laboratory, they also meet Marina (Jenny Seagrove), a mysterious marine researcher who seems more in him in water than on dry land. Once Mac and Olsen reach the village, they settle in the bed and the local breakfast led by Gordon Urquhart (Denis Lawson), who also doubles the accountant that Mac must work to conclude the agreement. Just when we prepare for a classic story of courageous villagers using their minds to thwart a huge society determined to destroy their house, “local hero” goes in a different direction. Rustic inhabitants literally dance a template at the perspective of sale, fantasizing about what they will do with their cup of money. There is however an obstacle that blocks the agreement – Ben Knox (Fulton Mackay) Who has the whole beach that connects the village to the sea. Meanwhile, Danny falls in love with Marina, and things happen in the sky with showers of meteors and the northern lights, to the great pleasure of Happen back in Texas.

The possible result of the “local hero” will probably not be surprising, but Bill Forsthy gently subverts our expectations at each stage of the process. It is a film where there are no bad guys, and the winding intrigue and a large part of humor develop organically from the characters. Everything is played so victoriously with attractive performance of the whole casting, including a riegert and the legend of the screen without cutting, which sprinkles a little magic dust on the film each time it is on the screen.

Bill Forsyth is from Glasgow, and the “local hero” is filled with ironic Scottish humor, alert of the weaknesses of human behavior and benevolent in its ironic amusement. There are clear parallels with “Brigadoon”, while Furness emerges from the mist and gradually enchants a resident of the American city; The film also captivates with its quirky fantasy and its touches of magical realism, from the original routines of the villagers to the presence of a woman who can be a real siren.

I didn’t really have any “local heroes” when I saw him for the first time like a teenager, maybe because it was a little too subtle for me at the time. However, I was defeated by emotion on a recent watch without being able to determine exactly why; Like Mac de Riegert, I was gradually and absolutely won over by his charms. We can guess from the start, he will find himself in Scotland, and the heart of the film is how it is slowly wrapped by village life and the wonders of nature, fascinated by tiny creatures rushing into a tidal pool and meteor showers spreading the night sky. It is a magnificently shot film, with the cinematography of Chris Menges capturing the splendor swept by the wind of the Scottish coast without resorting to the processing of postcards of the cheesy image. Nor can I overestimate the amount of score of Mark Knopfler contributes to the atmosphere, gradually building in a hymn of joyful desire.

“Local Hero” manages to transport your environmental message in a simple way that never appears as a sermonization. Forsyth’s scenario uses satirical elements, such as the meetings of the wacky board of directors and an over-elaborated comic model of the village in a research of binding wicked, but the challenges of the potential destruction of Furness to profit take place more deeply in Mac’s school awakening.

The icing on top is Burt Lancaster like Felix Happeer. The Hollywood idol arrived at the end of a career covering over 40 years and nine perfect films (according to Rotten Tomatoes), but it was rarely more delicious than it is here. On paper, Happeer is a fairly bizarre character, the more a tycoon, but Lancaster plays him directly with the committed air of a person who may feel that something wonderful is about to happen. Which, of course, is; “Local Hero” is a small but finely detailed film which establishes a miraculous balance between well-being and melancholy.