Scotland, PA Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)February 26th, 2002
SCOTLAND, PA
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2002 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
You should brush up on your "Macbeth" before entering "Scotland, PA," since a fresh reading of the Bard's bleakest tragedy will help you focus on what's going on (otherwise, like me, you'll be distracted from a lot of the on-screen shenanigans as you try to disseminate the Duncans from the Malcolms).
Unfortunately, writer/director Billy Morrissette can't have read the play all that recently himself because if he had, he'd have remembered it's a *tragedy*.
That's kind of the key to "Scotland, PA"'s undoing since, no matter how hard the film tries to be hip and irreverent, the "story by William Shakespeare" (an opening credit that gets the film's first laugh) is first and foremost a tragic one and there's no getting around that. You can't blame Morrissette for trying though, and at times his '70s reworking, centering around a greedy couple's desire to own the roadside restaurant where they work, is smart and well acted. Morrissette deftly blends the three witches (here three hippies) and the murder (James Rebhorn gets fry-o-lated) and the "out, out, damned spot!" sequence (the lady McBeth has her hand splattered with hot Crisco) into the proceedings.
He even manages to reference the woods at Dunsinane, although they don't figure as apocryphally as they did in the original source material.
The McBeths, Joe and Pat, who spend much of the film snogging, plotting, and snogging some more, are adeptly played by James LeGros and Maura Tierney. It's nice to see the underutilized Tierney finally landing a juicy leading role after coming off such thankless tasks as The Wife (in "Liar, Liar") and The Fiancée (in "Forces of Nature"), and LeGros is convivial as the windswept yet easily led fast-food killer.
There's a lot of designer chic on hand, including a soundtrack of Bad Company tunes from the period, but things almost always take a turn for the better whenever Christopher Walken is on screen (he plays Lieutenant Ernie McDuff, the vegetarian cop with the sub-compact and the self-help tapes who's called in to investigate).
As junk food for the soul goes, "Scotland, PA" has its enriching moments. But there's extra cheese on this Big Mac.
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David N. Butterworth
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