Rating: 
Summary: In the name of all that is holy buy this movie!
Review: This movie has now become an indie/cult hit of my whole family. Funny! Funny! Funny! The acting by the wilson brothers is superb. Owen Wilson should have become a superstar from this movie. You can watch this movie a dozen times without getting bored. Another great movie by Owen Wilson is Minus Man, however this is a very serious and thought provoking movie. Buy it now!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I first saw this movie in its original theatrical run in 1996. I was a little sceptical going in. I was thinking it was going to be just another Tarantino rip off. To my surprise it wasn't. I loved the characters and the way it was put together, it definitely had its own style. The characters are what makes this movie so great. Luke Wilson gives a great performance as Anthony the main character. Owen Wilson gives an equally great performance as Dignan, Anthony's best friend. It was easy to identify with the characters in the movie, it was like watching people you grew up with. The circumstances in the movie were unusual, but it doesn't really matter. The movie is not really about what they are doing, it's about their relationship with each other and how each they deal with what's happening. There is also a lot of humor in the movie, which adds to the character's personalities. The humor really makes the characters and there situation seem real. It's hard to explain this movie to anyone, because it really defies categorization. I would definitely recommend this movie, especially those with an offbeat sense of humor.
Rating: 
Summary: The Dynamic Duo
Review: With BOTTLE ROCKET the Wilson Bros. and Wes Anderson launched their impressive careers. And no wonder, for this film is a delight to watch. It's completely devoid of the cynicism, brutal violence, and pop-culture-ridden cliches of mid '90s filmdom. I completely fell in love with Owen Wilson's acting, his comic delivery and utterly sincere reading of Dignan, was like nothing I'd ever seen. Of course Anderson & Wilson's script, though nowhere near as astute as RUSHMORE or THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, is the real charmer here. They are the Dynamic Duo of scriptwriting today, it's too bad Oscar didn't notice that this year. I look forward to their future collaborations and solo projects.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: If someone were to ask me why I enjoyed this movie so much, I wouldn't know what to say. I know certain parts of it that I like (just about every part), but all in all I can't figure out what it is about BOTTLE ROCKET that gets me. But I guess that just makes the two people who wrote it (Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson) geniuses.BOTTLE ROCKET involves three guys that want to rob places. But is that what it is really about? I still can't figure it out. I might need to watch it again and again until I find some kind of theme; but then again, I don't really care (the movie is that good). In the beginning, Dignan (Owen Wilson) and his friend Anthony (Luke Wilson) are two guys that are about to go rob stores or banks or I don't know what. I'm not going to tell you the entire sequence of events, but I am going to tell you that the characters have so much depth, the dialogue is so well-written, and each scene is so good that this movie should be praised by everyone. But BOTTLE ROCKET isn't praised by everyone. Most people probably haven't even heard of it. Why? No idea, but it doesn't really matter. If you haven't seen this movie, for the love of God, go see it. You will especially enjoy watching Owen Wilson's character every time he's on the screen. Thank you Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. Brilliant. Pure Genius.
Rating:
Summary: Very fresh, original, and oddly touching
Review: It's so rare these days to see a film that doesn't remind you of a dozen other ones. This one is truly one-of-a-kind without seemingly trying to be. It's very modest, underplayed, and entertaining but it's also very fresh in its characterizations and subject matter. I may not watch this one as often as that other Anderson/Wilson gem, "Rushmore" but I'm glad it's around and I'd think that anyone with a fondness for originality and dry humor should at least see it once.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: This movie is truly one of my favorites of all time! Great acting, subtle humor...the Wilson brothers are absolutely fantastic. ("Why are you putting that tape on your nose?" "Exactly!")
Lawn Wranglers, Unite!
Rating:
Summary: The beginning of a great adventure.
Review: As its title indicates, 'Bottle Rocket' is a desperately sad comedy about confinement and the reach for liberation. Framed by men incarcerated in institutions accompanied by friends, the film switches expertly between perspectives and patterns - from wide country spaces to cramped interiors whose very shapes seem to offer yet another wall to kick against; from hope-fuelled plans to inept executions; from the need to settle down to the desire to escape; from children to adults, friends to lovers, play to work; from comedy to tragedy, the ideal to real, fireworks to damp squibs, trust to lies, innocence to experience. And, for genius director Wes Anderson, from the limitations of genre, to the messy, vibrant open-endedness of emotional experience. If the characters in 'Bottle Rocket' were children, the whole thing would seem a lark. A young man, Anthony, is released from a mental hospital, where he was rocovering from 'exhaustion'; he is met by his high-wired friend Dignan, who bombards him with blueprints for the next 50 years of their lives. They plan a heist on a book store, bringing in a rich friend, car-owning Bob, frequent victim of his beefy older brother's bullying. This is intended to impress the Kafkaesque figure of Mr. Henry, a landscape-gardener-...-ganglord. They cross states 'on the lam' for a while, where Anthony falls in love with Inez, a cleaner from Paraguay with little English. Bob, his brother arrested for drug-dealing, goes back with the car. Frustrated by failed love and broken dreams, Anthony and Dignan have a fight, Anthony returning home to relative normality. Then Dignan turns up in a yellow boiler-suit, with the big plan that's going to turn their lives... The film is full of play, silliness, mucking about, kids pretending they're big men, their failures eliciting laughter and sympathy. Anderson's fluid but fidgety style, true to the needs of his story, but employing all manner of stylistic variations, approximates his young heroes' vitality, imagination and restlessness, while the family intimacy of cast and crew spills into the performances. Because these aren't kids, though, because their lives are slipping away, because their dreams far outstrip their means, the larks stop being funny. The true hero of the film is not the compromising Anthony, through whose developing eyes we watch it (the nocturnal, neon-pool love scene at the motel is a hymn to quiet rapture, quickly intruded on by his friend), but Dignan, a man out of time (and, let's be honest, mind), a man with ambition, big ideas in a little land, a straw target easily unstuffed by burly policemen; a man who needs space, confined. Although it wasn't especially noticed at the time, 'Bottle Rocket' now looks set to join 'Citzen Kane', 'They Live By Night' and 'Badlands' as one of the great American debuts. It has the spaciousness, generosity, inbuilt mystery, feel for America and stylistic depth that could see it grow.
Rating:
Summary: one of the funniest movies i've ever seen!
Review: i rented the dvd a couple weeks ago and i still think of certain scenes and quotes when i'm walking down the street and burst out laughing. i am sure that i'm not even catching all the humor in it, and need to see it several more times. this movie is hilarious in that indie, bizarre kind of way, like love & a .45 in it's strangeness. i saw a button on ebay with a picture of the Lawn Wranglers - owen's landscaping company in the movie - and am still laughing...
Rating:
Summary: My absolute favoriate movie -- hands down!
Review: Bottle Rocket is clever, innocent, and hilarious at the same time! The first time I saw this movie, I thought it would be a smash. Unfortunately, it was not picked up by most of popular culture's radar. Too bad, because Bottle Rocket is a gem. Even after having first seen it nearly two years ago, I often remember of snappy lines from the film or find myself thinking "I having a Dignan moment." The characters are all very memorable, and the script is marvelous. Highly recommended -- this is my all-time favorite movie!
Rating:
Summary: Righteous Dignan narration
Review: Early on in "Bottle Rocket", there's an exchange that crystallizes, for me, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's filmmaking ethos. The scene is set at night. Three men are sitting in their car outside a bookstore, pre-robbery. Dignan (Owen) and Anthony (Luke Wilson) put white tape across the bridges of their noses. Bob (Robert Musgrave), the get-away driver, innocently asks, "Why is there tape on your nose?" Dignan, with a devilish grin stretching from ear to ear, excitedly replies, "Exactly!" It's typical for Anderson/Wilson characters to not fully understand the reason for their actions (or if they do, never tell the audience), while knowing that, like sharks, if they stop moving they will die. "Bottle Rocket" grew out of a notion that Anderson and Wilson had that their generation, so long believed to be idle and apathetic, could accomplish great things if they channeled their boundless energy. The problem being, what did they want to accomplish? This is no better exemplified than with Dignan. He is a wonderful creation: a case of arrested development whose actions are completely unexpected. Sure, you know he's going to screw up somehow, but will it be through his over-extended bravado, or just his general incompetence? And try as you might, you just can't get a complete read on his personality. He shows not a whit of self-awareness until the film's final scene, a genuinely surprising moment where he has enough self-awareness for ten men. It is Dignan who acts as the impetus for what is going to go down: a youthful crime operation is to be formed, with the sole intent of proving to the local crime boss (James Caan, in a role that's probably too small; still, Caan, in his brief scenes, shines) that they are ready to jump to the big leagues. Only they aren't. And probably never will be. This is where most of the film's broad comedy comes from: watching Dignan and his boys try their best, and constantly fail through misguided attempts, to become real thieves (at one point they rob Anthony's house, just for practice). While Dignan is the showier role, Anthony is the crux of the movie; it is told through his eyes. Luke Wilson, an actor of low-key charm who gets more appealing the more I watch him, plays the yin to his brother Owen's yang. Anthony is Dignan's more adult alter ego. Or, more accurately, he's Dignan's Big Brother figure: full of support and amusement for Dignan's harebrained schemes, always willing to lend a hand, and, if needed, a sane word. An odd role for a man just released from a mental hospital. And Wilson, in his first film role, even gets to play a very touching and tender romance with Inez (Lumi Cavazos), a Spanish-only speaking maid at a motel. It's this section, which takes up most of the film's middle third, which defines Anthony's character most. It is the one scene in the mental hospital that, in a few scant moments, defines Anthony and Dignan's relationship. Anthony is ready to check out, voluntarily, but a confused Dignan wants to help him break out. Always the good sport, Anthony ties several bed sheets together, explains politely to his doctor what he's doing, and casually rappels down the wall, while his friend, hiding in the bushes, couldn't be more excited that his plan was a success. Dignan, the adventurous man-child with big ideas and loads of initiative, and Anthony, the ever-loyal friend who always wants to do his buddy right, compliment each other so well in this scene, as they do throughout the movie. It is a fascinating and complex, but very dear, relationship. Anderson's filmmaking style, so effervescent in his next two films ("Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums"), still shines through here, although it is hampered by two things. First, he has a stingier budget to work with (at one point we see inmates wearing jumpsuits emblazoned with the words "WASCO STATE PENITENTIARY"; the same suit, if seen in "Tenenbaums" would be professionally made and ornate, while here it appears to be a painter's overalls written on with magic marker). Second, whereas "Rushmore" and "Tenenbaums" were basically confined to one setting (a prep school and a Manhattan townhouse respectively), "Bottle Rocket" is a road movie. Anderson can't plan elaborate tableaus, filled with precious details, when the location may change from scene to scene. These aren't harsh criticisms, mind you. But I did feel like Anderson wasn't able to fully play to his strengths here, as he got a chance to later. That's not to say he doesn't still indulge in his passion for vibrant details. One fine example is Dignan's notebook, outlining his 75-year (!) plan for success. It goes by quickly, so you'll have to pause if you want to read each page as it flips by. I recommend you do. It's a marvel of low-key ambition and wrong-headed planning. And Anderson's passion for music, a character unto itself in his later films, is more subdued, but no less effective, here. Mark Mothersbaugh, a frequent collaborator with Anderson, again provides the score and again does a flawless, eccentric job. "Bottle Rocket" is a modest masterpiece. Anderson and Wilson's script, with its Altmanesque scenes of overlapping dialogue, its obsession with the incidentals of the character's lives, and its knack for peculiar dialogue (Dignan, in an atypical moment of self-doubt, says, "He's out. And you're out, too. And I don't think I'm in, either. No gang!"), is just plain wonderful. Anderson's direction shows the promise he would later fulfill. And the acting, mainly by the Wilson brothers, but also by Musgrave, Cavazos, and Caan, is not as amateurish as I would have expected. A fine, funny, friendly film, that shoots for the moon, but doesn't flare out quickly like the fireworks for which it is named.
|
