Scotland, PA

“We're not bad people, Mac... just underachievers who have to make up for lost time.”

I heard about this movie a long time ago and it had been sitting in my NetFlix queue for a long time. I thought oooh, a MacBeth movie. Sounds interesting. And it was.
This retelling of MacBeth takes place in 1970’s Scotland, Pennsylvania, hence the name Scotland, PA. Joe McBeth and his wife Pat work in the local fast food joint. Pat’s convinced that Joe should be running the shop rather than bowing and scraping to the owner Duncan. She's sure that she could be doing a much better job of running the place. The oh so simple plan turns out to be a disaster, as you might expect from a Shakespearean tragedy. Things look bright for awhile, but you know how it goes – no water, no perfumes of Arabia can wash those hands clean, and boy do they know it.
The cast in this movie was amazing – James LeGros, Maura Tierney, Christopher Walken, and Amy Smart.  All sorts of indy verterans were in this one. The atmosphere was great and the 1970’s fast food resturant location was inspired. I mean, it it also a bit campy, but I think that was the point. I love Shakespeare, so I’m fine with extremely accurate, line by line interpretations, but this whole retelling has the comedy and tragedy all at the same time. I wouldn't consider it to be Oscar winning or anything like that, but it was a great rental. I’m ashamed that it sat so far down in my queue for so long.

Rating: 4 Purrs for campy, bell-bottomed French fried fun with tragedy and Christopher Walken to boot.