Written and directed by Bill Forsyth. Bill Paterson leads as an early-morning radio host who wakes Glasgow up with his good-spirited, G-rated japes. While driving his red BMW 313i coupé through the city, fantastically-permed Clare Grogan gives him an irresistible smile from an ice cream truck and we're off to the races. Forsyth's treatment of his mediation in their turf war is mostly gentle (like Andrina) though the seedy warehouses and low-level violence (mostly just property damage) gives it a harder edge (like That Sinking Feeling). It's a bit Glasgow Underbelly, sweetly, reflecting the changing ethnic composition and concerns. The conclusion is a homage to all the wily Scots in history.
The jokes are quite amusing: his dentist really does look like George C Scott, and how is it that everyone knows what Paterson looks like? Mark Knopfler provides a soundtrack less memorable than Local Hero's; much is lifted from Dire Straits's 1982 album Love Over Gold. Afterwards I learnt that Knopfler is actually Glaswegian and Clare Grogan also had a pop music career.
Roger Ebert: three-and-a-half stars. Forsyth "has made a specialty out of characters who are as real as you and me, and nicer than me." Vincent Canby replays the opening scenes where Paterson is summarily dumped by his klepto girlfriend Eleanor David and we think we're in for something quite different to what follows. A disappointment after Gregory's Girl and Local Hero (!). Jonathon Coe in 2009. The cinematography by Chris Menges is indeed great.
