Themes: Ladder to the Top, Nothing Goes Right, Crime Gone Awry
Main Cast: James LeGros, Maura Tierney, Christopher Walken, Kevin Corrigan, James Rebhorn
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
What happens if you take one of William Shakespeare's darkest tragedies and move it to a burger joint in the early 1970s? The answer can be found in the satiric comedy Scotland, PA, the first feature from writer and director Billy Morrissette. Mac McBeth (James LeGros) is a hard-working but unambitious doofus who toils at a hamburger stand alongside his wife Pat (Maura Tierney), who has a significant edge in the brains department. Pat is convinced she could do a lot better with the place than their boss Norm Duncan (James Rebhorn) is doing, so she works up a plan to usurp Norm, convincing Mac to rob the restaurant's safe and then murder Norm, using the robbery as a way of throwing the police off their trail. Though two stoners (Andy Dick and Timothy Speed Levitch) and a would-be fortune teller (Amy Smart) warn Mac that bad luck awaits him, he gathers his courage and goes through with his wife's scheme. At first, things seem to have gone just as Pat hoped, and after Norm's sons (Geoff Dunsworth and Tom Guiry) sell the restaurant to the McBeths (they pay for it with the money they stole from Norm), business takes off. But vegetarian police detective McDuff (Christopher Walken) is convinced there's foul play at the new center of the fast food universe, and when the McBeths fear that fry cook Banco (Kevin Corrigan) knows more than he's letting on, Pat decides another murder is on the menu. Scotland, PA premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival; incidentally, Shakespeare does receive screen credit for his contribution to the story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Tom Guiry - Malcolm Duncan; Amy Smart - Stacy/Hippie; Timothy (Speed) Levitch - Hector/Hippie; Andy Dick - Jesse/Hippie
Credit
Shelley Nieder - Art Director, David C. Robinson - Costume Designer, Billy Morrissette - Director, Adam Lichtenstein - Editor, Karen J. Lauder - Executive Producer, Marcus Ticotin - Executive Producer, Anton Sanko - Composer (Music Score), Jennifer Stewart - Production Designer, Wally Pfister - Cinematographer, Richard Shepard - Producer, Jonathan Stern - Producer, Doug Johnston - Sound/Sound Designer, Billy Morrissette - Screenwriter, William Shakespeare - Play Author
The movie's soundtrack is made up of Bad Company songs as, in Morrissette's words, the catalogue "was surprisingly cheap to buy."
Morrissette also stated, on the DVD, that some of Tierney's dialogue are actual idioms she uses. Morrissette, who was married to Tierney at the time, states this is because he heard her saying these words or phrases while writing the script.
Details
The man walking his dog in front of the diner at the start of the film is the director, Billy Morrissette (walking his dog in real life).
The press kit for the movie was printed in the form of a Cliff Notes booklet (which is what Morrisette was reading when he was studying Shakespeare).
