Highlander (1986)

There are films that earn their cult status through sheer quality, and then there are films that earn it through sheer audacity. Highlander, released in 1986 and produced by Davis-Panzer Productions with Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, falls firmly into the second camp. The premise, a Scottish warrior named Connor MacLeod who discovers he is immortal after surviving a fatal wound on the Highlands in 1536, and who must eventually face his greatest battle on the streets of contemporary New York City, is the sort of high-concept fantasy that could only have been greenlit in the mid-1980s, when studios were willing to throw together period drama, urban action and mythology into a single blender and see what came out. The result is a film that has lodged itself in popular culture far more stubbornly than its actual reputation as a piece of filmmaking might suggest, spawning sequels, a television series, and a devoted following that has kept it alive for nearly four decades.

Behind the camera is Russell Mulcahy, an Australian director who had built his name directing music videos, including several for Duran Duran, before making the jump to features. That background gives Highlander a visual energy that is occasionally striking, even if it also contributes to a certain restlessness in the editing. It is worth noting that Mulcahy would go on to other genre work in the years that followed (you can find my thoughts on his Resident Evil: Extinction elsewhere on the site). The screenplay, written by Gregory Widen from his own original story, was Widen's first produced feature credit, which perhaps explains some of the structural roughness that critics and fans have long noted. The film was shot largely on location in Scotland and New York, giving it a genuine geographical sweep that a purely studio production could not have achieved. Queen contributed the original songs on the soundtrack, a choice that proved far more memorable than almost anything else about the film's production, with tracks woven directly into the action rather than sitting underneath it in the conventional way.

The principal cast is a curious mix of the inspired and the miscalculated. Christopher Lambert, a French actor who had recently come to international attention in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, takes the central role of Connor MacLeod. Playing opposite him is Roxanne Hart as the present-day New York woman drawn into his world, and Clancy Brown as the film's villain, the brutal Kurgan, a performance that has earned Brown considerable retrospective appreciation from genre audiences. Then there is Sean Connery, playing the Spanish-Egyptian immortal Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez, a casting decision that raises its own questions given that a Scottish actor was hired to play a character explicitly not Scottish while the lead role of the Scottish MacLeod went to a Frenchman. It is that kind of film. For another take on adventure cinema, both visceral and self-aware in its own way, you might also enjoy my review of Mad Max: Fury Road, or if you are in the mood for something from the same decade, there is always Re-Animator, another 1980s genre piece that has its own complicated relationship with quality and cult affection.

Highlander has style, a killer Queen soundtrack, and the kind of immortal-sword-fighter-in-modern-times concept that’s pure 80s cheese gold, but let’s be honest: it’s not nearly as good as its cult following makes it out to be. Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod is… well, he’s not an actor so much as a very serious man standing still and squinting a lot. His line delivery is wooden enough to build another bridge, and the rest of the cast doesn’t fare much better, though Sean Connery, bless him, clearly showed up trying, complete with fake Scottish accent and leather pants, doing his best to elevate nonsense like “There can be only one.” The story (a centuries-old warrior preparing for “The Gathering” of immortals) is actually kind of cool in theory, and the Glasgow flashbacks have a raw, mythic charm. But the film itself is a mess, jumbled editing, inconsistent tone, terrible wigs, and fight scenes that range from decent to laughably bad. And the dialogue is cringe-worthy. It’s fun in a “so-bad-it’s-almost-good” way, and there’s undeniable nostalgia baked into its neon-lit, synth-heavy soul. But judged as an actual film the acting’s weak, the logic is thin, and the modern-day plot drags. Worth watching once for the vibe, the music, and the sheer audacity.

I keep coming back to that word, audacity. For all its very real problems, and there are plenty of them, Highlander is genuinely swinging for something, a myth-soaked, rock-scored, transatlantic fantasy that refuses to be modest about itself even when modesty might have helped. The Queen soundtrack does an enormous amount of heavy lifting, covering cracks that the script and performances leave wide open. The Glasgow sequences, rough as they are, carry a sense of place and weight that the New York material rarely matches. It is a film I am glad exists, mostly because it represents a particular kind of filmmaking bravado that has become rarer, though I could happily do without ever hearing Connor MacLeod deliver another line of dialogue. There can be only one, indeed. Pity it is not a better film.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 1986  | Watched: 2025-09-17

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Russell Mulcahy: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)