A gleeful sense of humour powers Michael Hoffman’s 1985 crime caper, part of Scotland’s cinematic response to Thatcherism
“Guns are for LASSIES! Nobody seems to put the BOOT in any more!” This rousing manifesto for muscular non-armed crime of the traditional sort comes from one of the hardened villains that surreally pop up in this intensely likable Scottish caper from 1985, with a soundtrack from Big Country. It was part of a boom in Britmovie comedy of the era when Scotland was becoming caustically alienated from Thatcherite England, and which gave us Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl, Comfort and Joy and Local Hero. The script from Ninian Dunnett was originally the winning entry of a screenwriting competition (Dunnett in fact wrote no more for the screen after this, and became an author and social historian) and it was directed by the anglophile and caledonophile American Michael Hoffman.
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