mtd movies: Bottle Rocket

“Who is dat man?”

“You don’t know who that is? That’s Applejack!”

Love this movie! Welcome to mtd’s movie picks. Today’s article is on the incredibly quirky, yet lovable film, Bottle Rocket.

Bottle Rocket is our first look at the goofy world of director, Wes Anderson. And let me tell you, I’d like to convalesce in that crazy world for a decade or two. Anderson has really carved himself a niche in Hollywood, with this film, and others in the same vein as it, like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums to name a few.

In addition to giving us a glimpse into Anderson’s world, we get to meet Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, and it’s no secret, these two are hilarious!

Owen, in this film anyway, is totally off his rocker. In other films, he might play the cute, charming and introspective dude with the long yellow locks. But in this film, he’s a freak of nature. A force to be reckoned with. This film is fun, but man does Dignan, his character, represent a potentially very scary catastrophe waiting to happen.

Luke, is, I guess you could say, the straight man in this film. Like in many of his films that would follow, he represents the voice of reason in a particularly crazy world. And you can’t get much crazier than one of Wes Anderson’s worlds.

There are other notable performances like the one given by Robert Musgrave, who basically plays a bucket of mud- but a good bucket of mud at that. There’s even room for screen legend,James Caan, in this film, who gives a typical Caan-esque performance, you know, the passive aggressive psychopath thing that scares the crap out of you. However, in my opinion, this film is stolen for precious-few seconds at a time by the father and son team of Kumar and Dipak Pallana. Kumar is an inept, elderly thief of Pakistani descent, and Dipak is an inept, clueless bookstore clerk of Pakistani descent. Both of them seem to have just wandered onto the set, and their inquisitive and thoughtless dialogue is priceless. Anderson uses them in other films as well. Love those guys.

There are lots of odd things that I guess I’ll never know but don’t mind not knowing, like why is Bob’s brother called “Future Man”? But that’s just part of the fun.

So, if you’re one of the lucky few that haven’t seen Bottle Rocket, and get to see if for the first time, I envy you. Grab it at Blockbuster or Netflix or whatever you do! It’s worth it!