Bottle Rocket (1996)

Genre: Comedy

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Starring: Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Robert Musgrave

Running time: 92 minutes

As Anthony (Luke Wilson) gets out of a psychiatric hospital for what he refers to as exhaustion, his friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) waits for him to embark on an adventure. Their plan is to do several heists so they can impress and get hired by Mr. Henry, a former boss of Dignan.

After seeing a few of Wes Anderson’s films, I decided that I liked those enough to review his whole filmography for this blog. So, after The Royal Tenenbaums, I decided to go back to the start with the director’s directorial debut. Anderson also cowrote the movie with Owen Wilson.

Anderson has worked many times with the Wilson brothers over the years, and the chemistry already seemed to be there in Bottle Rocket. The actors seemed to be at ease with the material and in a good place to carry it out.

From the beginning, Bottle Rocket has a low budget feel to it, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The story itself is a bit weak, but it is cute. It showed a lot of promise for what Wes Anderson was capable of doing. The use of music was already a big thing for him, and a pleasant one for me. All things considered, Bottle Rocket is a good start to a director’s career.

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