Cheap Scotland, PA. (DVD) (James LeGros, Maura Tierney) (Billy Morrissette) Price

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Customer Reviews of Scotland, PA.

Set in the mid seventies SCOTLAND, PA stars James LeGros (Psycho) as Joe MacBeth a cook at Duncan's café. He the kind of guy with lots of ideas, but absolutely no drive and so people walk all over him. So when his boss Norm Duncan (James Rebhorn, Far From Heaven) uses some of them while promoting his useless son Malcolm, his wife Pat(Maura Tierney, Primary Colors), a beautiful and driven hatch's a plan. She and 'Mac' are going to [destroy] Duncan (who by the way made his fortune in Donuts (yes it's corny but I found it kind of funny)) and open up MacBeth's the first fast food drive-thru restaurant in Scotland, PA.

SCOTLAND, PA plays fast and loose with it's source material and has some really great ideas jammed packed in it. It's always fun to reinterpret Shakespeare, because his works are timeless. You can set them in the 18th century or a hundred years in the future and the characters are still real and powerful.

Maura Tierney's Lady MacBeth is phenomenal. It is a performance full of subtle nuance; of course she hatches the plan and is able to manipulate MacBeth. But there is also vulnerability about her. I wonder if she were my wife would I not follow? I'd probably do anything she said. She kind of reminds me of my fiancé, in whom I would probably kill for. That's the mark of a great femme fatale. Her performance is engaging and wonderful, and one of the best I've seen in a long time.

It's the other character's that seem understated and dull. No other performance really sticks out until Christopher Walken show's up. He portrays Lieutenant McDuff, the detective sent out to figure out just who [destroyed] Duncan. He plays the part with that certain gusto that only Walken could bring to the role. He's plays parts like these so well, he's always walking that thin line between quirky and bored and you can't help but be enchanted by him. He's really amazing.

I also enjoyed Amy Smart (Outside Providence), Andy Dick (Dude, Where's My Car?) and Timothy 'Speed' Levitch (The Crusie) as the three witches. They offer the comic relief that some points of the movie desperately needed. Sure they were a little corny and maybe a bit to zany for the film, but since the movie has a certain silly tone, it was okay with me.

First time director and writer Billy Morrissette will always hold that special place in my heart at the tough guy in Pump up the Volume. He is defiantly a fun director who has a nice visual sense. I liked how the film may have been set in the 70's and yet also felt like it could have been happening in present day. Many lesser films would have felt like the characters were at a 70's party and not like real people living at the time.

I also liked the look of the press conference as they drove in the convertible. It's was just a beautiful sequence right before the dam breaks. It pretty powerful stuff.

Scotland PA is not a brilliant reworking of the MacBeth story, but it's fun, vibrant, and Tierney and Walken are worth and hour and forty minutes. I only wish the rest of of the cast were up to snuff. All in all I recommend this movie.

SCOTLAND PA is well worth a visit.

You want Fries with that dagger ?
A clever retelling of the tragedy of MacBeth. Rather than being the loyal vassal to the King of Scotland he is the dedicated sort-order cook for the workaholic restaurant proprietor, Norm Duncan. Inevitably Joe's wife decided that the time is now for these "underachievers who need to make up for lost time". After the tragic and mysterious death of the owner, the couple is able to buy the place at a discount from the dead man's sons. Once ensconced as the owners they make a stunning number of changes including big red arches, a drive-thru, and little fried chicken pieces (called little chicken MacBeths). It all seems so perfect until the details start to unravel. A policeman named MacDuff is investigating the murder of Duncan, MacBeth's best friend starts asking questions about where the couple was the night of the murder, and Mrs. Macbeth develops an obsession with a grease burn she got on her hand.

This was a movie well worth the money. It was funny from one end to the other. It reminded me of the comment that Kissinger once said about academia "The Politics are especially vicious because the stakes are so small". In this film we see that even the smallest kingdom is sometimes worth fighting for.

Good Set-Up, No Follow-Through
If you've read or seen a production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, you're already familiar with this story. Reset in a 1970's fast-food restaurant, this funny but spotty adaptation is a good idea that wasn't executed as well as it could have been. When Joe "Mac" McBeth's idea for this newfangled Drive-Thru thingie merits him only feint rewards, he and his wife do in his boss, Norm Duncan. As you know, he merits some short-term rewards, but everything goes downhill from there.

This movie has some really sharp visuals--the cinematography is gorgeous--and the soundtrack is laced with some well-chosen AM radio hits from the time period in question. The beginning has some of the wittiest indi-film humor in years. But as we reach the climax, the filmmakers start playing funny with Shakespeare's sequence, moving a lot of Acts IV and V material up to act III to put the climax closer to the resolution. The jokes become sparse, and the ironic self-referential Macbeth material becomes grating rather than funny.

By making Mac McBeth a businessman and respected community member, the tragic downfall remains part of the character, but by having the character never change, or even cut his hair, and by having his final downfall take place privately and in the dark of night, we are left with anticlimax rather than Aristotelian catharsis. This movie was a great idea, but it wasn't carried though in the best possible way. Here's hoping someone else takes a shot at it again when the chance comes.