 Scotland, PA despite such a whimsical premise is a comic dose of brilliance.
Director/writer Billy Morrissette is better known as a supporting actor in such films as Pump Up the Volume. His directorial debut was Scotland, PA & as I write this review it is still the only film he has directed and/or written. If Billy is having trouble selling more film projects, then there's just no justice in filmmaking.
The story transfers Shakespeare's Macbeth to a white trash town in Pennsylvania, circa 1975, with possession of a fast-food restaurant standing in for the Scottish castle.
Christopher Walken outdoes Peter Falk's Columbo in fashioning a memorable character: the vegetarian police leutenant McDuff investigating the grotesque death of Norm Duncan (James Rebhorn), whose frycook & window-waitress are the loser-stoner couple Joe & Pat McBeth (Maura Tierney pulling off a perfect satire of the pitiless femme fatale, & James LeGros delivering hysterical material in equally perfect deadpan manner).
Scotland, PA is black comedy at its finest, definitely more plausible than absurd, with excellent performances all round. It is lighthearted & dementedly appalling, a sweet film with vileness at the core, delightful throughout.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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