Restless Natives (1985)

Genre: ComedyStudio: Thorn/EMI Entertainment Director: Michael HoffmanScreenwriter: Ninian DunnettCast: Vincent Friel, Joe Mullaney, Teri Lally, Robert Urquhart, Ned Beatty, Mel Smith, Iain McCollRunning Time: approximately 90 minutesLanguage: EnglishRating: NR (US version)

With the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in early 2013, a chapter of British history, packed away for some time like an embarrassing photo of a mullet hairdo, was pulled out from the dusty attic, smoothed out, and reflected upon in the days and weeks immediately after her passing. Indeed, as some danced in the streets and drank a toast to the demise of the Iron Lady, the ghosts of the era couldn’t help but rattle their chains loudly, symbolic of the dissatisfaction gripping the country throughout her term, particularly through the mid-1980s. After all, this was the era of miners’ strikes, jobless youth, simmering punk-rock nihilism, and the saber-rattling Cold War alliance between Great Britain and the United States. Serious and unpredictable stuff for sure.

Ironically, then, it is from this backdrop that the rather predictable comedy Restless Natives springs. Ninian Dunnett’s screenplay, winner of the 1984 Lloyd’s

Bank/Oxford Screenwriting Prize, centers on two working-class young men in 1980s Edinburgh, Will Bryce and Ronnie Witherspoon (Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney, respectively), who try to compensate for their less-than-stellar young adult lives by becoming modern-day highwaymen on motorbikes, disguised as a wolfman and a clown (or, as Will describes them in the lead up to the climax of the film, “The Clown and the Wolfman”), in order to rob Highland tour buses. As this is very much a lighthearted farce, no one meets violence for refusing to hand over loot, of course; on the contrary, while a gun does make an appearance in a few of the holdups, the main weapon utilized is a toy “puffer” filled with various assortments of common household products, selected from the plethora of gag items found in the novelty shop where the two young bandits spend much of their time dreaming, plotting their next moves, and attempting to avoid fed up parents armed with plastic batons. Generally, however, the tourists love the holdups, as they believe them to be part of the tour package deal, a sort of stage show to fortify their campy notions about Scotland, notions that get more of an airing than the real devastation busily reshaping Scottish working-class culture at this time.

Moreover, the film satirizes the Cold War relationship between Britain and America in the character of Bender, played with smarmy yet buffoonish condescension by Ned Beatty. Bender is a victim of the puffer shoot aboard one of the tour buses, and he spends most of the film vacillating between trying to avenge himself by capturing the wily duo—thereby helping to save the golden egg of Scottish tourism in the process—and putting out divorce fires back home over the transatlantic telephone. Meanwhile, Friell and Mullaney are allowed to play up the conflicting circumstances their characters face, as well as the juxtaposition of personalities. Romantic Will has less stomach for the life of a ruthless highway robber, preferring to be more like Robin Hood, or better still the Scottish version of the proletariat’s hero, Rob Roy McGregor. Indeed, with the introduction of Margot, the female love interest (Teri Lally), he is able to entertain fanciful notions of Scottish chivalry, which, of course, serves to align the lovers, in part, with the tourists at whom the film pleasantly takes jabs.

Ronnie, on the other hand, orphaned and forced to make ends meet by working as the shop clerk in the novelty store, is most eager for the money and notoriety that bus robbery allows him. Within the comedic parameters of the film, its makers have found in Ronnie a handy tool of irony. They subvert the archetypal street tough, through his thick-rimmed glasses, choir-boy haircut, odd attachment to Bruce (his caged rodent), and his clearly out-of-depth approach to the more seasoned criminal element he attracts as the Highland holdups gain more traction.

By the end of the film, the masked highway men go on one last run, the long arm of bumbling international justice—but even more so, their own consciences—having finally caught up to them. While the twist to the highwaymen’s fates may perhaps be a bit formulaic, the good natured earnestness of Will and Ronnie’s hijinks makes it difficult to wish for any other destiny to befall them. Helping to play up the feel-fine tone is the infectious soundtrack provided by legendary Scottish band Big Country, in their heyday at this time in UK-based rock, and perhaps the most fitting musical outfit to evoke both a sense of rebellion and aesthetic sensibility from idyllic Highland vistas. Providing

further comic support are the late British actors Robert Urquhart as Chief Inspector Baird, Mel Smith as Pyle, the gangster promising to lead dopey Ronnie to the big time, and Iain McColl as Nigel, the whack job crook who brings all the action to a decidedly dramatic conclusion.

With none too few swear words, a more grizzled pair of players, a few darkened pubs, and some kitchen knives, Restless Natives could have just as easily been a gritty Ken Loach film. If the viewer goes into this film knowing better, for what it is, it works exceedingly well. Lighthearted escapism against the backdrop of social and economic dysfunction should do that.