Picks from Chip: Scotland, Pa

Films: Scotland, Pa
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

This is the fifth in a series of twelve movies suggested by Chip Lary.

I’ve decided to keep doing Chip’s list of suggested films. I think he’d want me to and I think it’s just one way to honor the man. I’ll continue to review one of his suggestions on the second Monday of each month until the end of the year. This month, I had some interesting issues with NetFlix and decided that I’d better do something that I could get via another route. Scotland, Pa was available at a local library, so that made the choice an easy one. Chip knew I like Macbeth and since this is basically Macbeth focused around a fast-food restaurant, it seems like a natural fit.

I’m not kidding when I say that this is more or less Macbeth but modernized. Joe McBeth (James Le Gros) is in his 30s and married to Pat (Maura Tierney). The two are classic slackers in that early-70s post-hippie style. They both work at a slowly-failing fast-food place called Duncan’s owned by Norm Duncan (James Rebhorn). Joe gets skipped for a promotion in favor of Douglas McKenna (Josh Pais), who has been stealing money from the restaurant. When Joe points this out to Norm, Douglas is fired and Joe is promoted to assistant manager. Pat, who is suddenly ambitious, wants more for the two of them. This coincides with a meeting joe has with a trio of hippies who tell him that he’ll be working in a restaurant that serves food similar to a drive-up bank.