accessAtlanta

Grade: C+

Verdict: Might fare better on the midnight-movie circuit.

Details: Starring James LeGros, Maura Tierney and Christopher Walken. Directed by Billy Morrissette. Rated R for language, nudity, drugs and brief violence. 1 hour, 35 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for Scotland, PA.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: If they can do "Othello" in high school, "Richard III" in pre-World War II Europe and "Hamlet" in modern Manhattan, why not "Macbeth" in rural Pennsylvania, circa 1975?

Thus, "Scotland, PA.," a sometimes smart but more often sophomoric take on the bard's Scottish play.

Joe "Mac" McBeth (James LeGros) and his wife, Pat (Maura Tierney), work at a local diner. He flips burgers, she practices perfecting the curl on the soft ice cream cones, and they both dream of a better future. Someday they'll save enough money to open a revolutionary fast-food joint called McBeths, featuring McBeth Burgers and the Big McBeth.

They could work for years to save enough cash. Or, they can murder their oafish boss, Duncan (James Rebhorn), and persuade his uninterested sons to sell the place to them for cheap. They go for the latter, committing murder by deep-fat fryer. Duncan is french-fried to death in his own kitchen.

There's some fun to be had in guessing how writer/director Billy Morrissette (Tierney's husband in real life) will work his Middle Americana riffs on Shakespeare. Macduff becomes Lt. McDuff, played as an eccentric vegan-style Columbo by Christopher Walken. Lady Macbeth's damned spot is transformed into a grease burn from the fryolator. Cleverest of all is what happens to Macbeth's famed soliloquy, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." It's transposed to a self-help tape: "Tomorrow is tomorrow. Tomorrow is not today."

When it's not messing around with "Macbeth," the movie has fun with mid-1970s icons like Riunite on iceIce, Yahtzee, fringed vests and Prince Spaghetti Sauce (the one with the commercials where the oh-so-Italian mama yells, "An . . .thon . . . y!")

But Morrissette doesn't know the difference between a good joke and an embarrassing one. Consider his casting of the three "toil and trouble" witches. They're posited as a trio of stoners who hang around a deserted amusement park late at night. Two of them are played by Timothy "Speed" Levitch ("The Cruise") and Amy Smart ("Starship Troopers'). The third is Andy Dick. What works for him on MTV doesn't here.

The acting ranges from wincingly broad (Rebhorn) to on-the-right-wavelength witty (LeGros and Tierney) to wacko (Walken). LeGros has the bluff dumbness of Paul LeMat in "Melvin and Howard" while Tierney sheds her good-girl "ER" role, playing Pat taut and slutty.

Ultimately, "Scotland, Pa." is a useless goof, diverting but nothing more. When she's trying to convince her husband to off Duncan, Pat pleads, "We're not bad people. We're underachievers."

The same could be said of her movie.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution