Tis The Winter of Our Hamburgers
Ok, bear with me here, ok?
What if we took the Shakesphere play "McBeth"...
Have it take place in the 1970's...
And have it centered around a fast food place?
Sounds crazy huh? Well, it actually works. And you don't really need to remember the boring ass play you had to read in high school to enjoy this movie. It might help to compare and contrast, but I think it works just fine. I read the play once in high school and I barely remembered it. I just know I liked the McDuff character so much I used the name in a early script I wrote.
So, like I said, it's the 1970's and Joe "Mac" McBeth is a fry cook at "Duncan's", a fast food restaurant. The owner, Norman Duncan, is kind of a jerk and always steals Mac's ideas to spruce up the joint. Mac's wife, Lady Pat McBeth, also works there. Duncan has two sons, Malcolm, who is a stoner and a rock n roller, and Donald, the son who's in the closet and likes acting out "Godspell". Mac also has a friend named Banko who works with them as well. And all of this takes place in the little "hamlet" of Scotland, Pennslyvannia.
Banko, one night, tells Mac that he knows the assistant manager Douglas McKenna is stealing from Duncan. Mac tells Duncan this and Duncan fires McKenna. I'm not sure but I think McKenna had a bigger part in the actual play. But here, he just pretty much vanishes.
On the same night that Banko tells Mac about Douglas, Mac wonders off into this field where a carnival suddenly shows up and three witches...er...no. Three hippies appear to him. Yes, hippies. One of them is played by Andy Dick. This sounds like something that'd be in a Saturday Night Live sketch, but seriously, Andy Dick is one of the witches/hippies. The female hippie tells Mac that she sees in the future a "intercom" at Duncan's.
So the day Duncan fires McKenna, Duncan makes Mac the new assistant manager and shows him and Pat his new idea: a "drive-thru" booth. Mac says he's got a better idea: an intercom. Duncan likes this idea and yet again steals another idea.
Pat says hell with Duncan, we should kill him, make it look like a robbery, and use said money to buy Duncan's. But the day they plan the robbery/murder falls on Banko's birthday. So Mac pretends he's sick so he and Pat can leave early and they arrive at Duncan's.
They conk him on the head and tie him up and make him tell them the combination to the safe. When the hippies appear out of nowhere, Mac gets startled and accidently pushes Duncan into the fryer. Sort of taking an odd turn, they stay at the crime scene to do some hanky-panky when Malcolm shows up. Duncan and Malcolm had a bad fight earlier and Malcolm wanted to apologize. But since no one answered the door, he saws "F'all y'all!" and speeds off.
So everything sort of goes according to plan. The police think Duncan was a victim of a robbery, got killed, and Malcom and Donald get filthy rich. They offer the restuarant to the McBeth's and they take it, quickly changing the name to, of course, "McBeth's". And they make the place look real nice and they have one of those new "drive-thru's", which is making them more famous.
But the McBeth's didn't count on one thing: Lieutenant McDuff, played by Christopher Walken. McDuff says that they have a suspect, a homeless dude named Andy. Andy was found with Duncan's jewelry, and no one believes his story of "just waking up with it on".
So the McBeth's relax for a bit and live it up. Then McDuff comes snooping around again, saying they can't keep Andy only on that evidence. So he interviews everyone, including Kevin "Tanman" McKane, named that cause he owns a tanning salon and is always tanned. McKane says he saw Malcolm leave Duncan's in a hurry on the night of the murder. And other people pretty much state that Malcom and Duncan didn't really get along.
Then out of nowhere, Banko says he thought of something odd. How the McBeth's left his party early. He tells this to the dumbass cop Ed, who gets all weirded out when McDuff tells Ed to open a letter that was meant for McDuff. But this is one of the funnier moments in the movie. The letter pretty much says that the McBeth's left the party early and think it's kinda weird that they're acting strangely now.
Mac realizes that Banko is causing problems and he must be dealt with. So they go hunting, where McBeth wants to "accidently" shoot Banko, but Banko ends up getting totally wasted. And when McDuff hears about Mac going hunting, Pat gives McDuff a fake map to stay off of Mac's trail.
The next day, the McBeth's are having a special party to celebrate the "drive-thru" and in kind of a strange way that I don't know how to explain, Mac frames Andy for the murder of Banko, which as we probably know, Mac really did it. But all this murder business is taking it's toll on him and he starts seeing Banko's ghost haunting him. Mac freaks out and goes on a drinking binge.
I forgot to mention that the night of the murder, Pat burned her hand. So now it is completely healed but she still feels the burn, which is symbolic and humorous.
When Mac comes back that night, he finds McDuff waiting for him and makes fun of the fact that he's a vegetarian. The hippies call upon Mac and tell him to go to the restaurant. He goes there and they tell him to kill McDuff. So they use dumbass cop Ed to lure him there. There's a confrontation on the roof, McDuff figures it all out, and then the grand finale:
McBeth lands on the hood of his car, where he has two very sharp bull horns, which stabs and kills him. And at home, Lady McBeth, not able to take her hand anymore, cuts it off and dies.
McDuff buys the restaurant and sells only veggie burgers. Needless to say, it isn't a big hit. Oh and there's a streaker. The end.
So the movie takes place in the 70's, it centers around a fast food place, and the main soundtrack of the film was Bad Company. This was one awesome movie. I think this was way better then "Romeo Plus Juliet", with Clare Daines and Leo Gilbert Grape. So all you Shakesphere nerds should check this out.
I would end on a cool McBeth quote but I forget, so here's a quote from one of my favorite comedies, "BASEketball":
"How to speak gay." Shows Squeak's ass. "Vagina".
4 stars.
"Scotland, Pa" on IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265713/