406 - Bottle Rocket, United States, 1996. Dir. Wes Anderson.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

406 - Bottle Rocket, United States, 1996.  Dir. Wes Anderson.

Anthony Adams is staying at a voluntary mental health facility.  He later tells his kid sister it was for exhaustion.

Anthony's best friend Dignan is loyal to Anthony.  So loyal that he decides to spring him from the joint.

Anthony asks the facility manager not to inform his pal that he can leave freely.  He does not want to ruin it for him.  So Anthony ties bedsheets to the bedpost and lowers over the window and escapes.

Dignan is thrilled.

Now they can get on with their lives.

Which Dignan has planned.  In fact, he has a 75-year plan.  Handwritten.  In a notebook.  Which he presents to Anthony upon his successful escape.

The plan includes a little burglary.  First, they will make their money quickly.  Then they will stop the burglaries and get married.

Dignan wants to settle down.  He just wants to get his money first.  And quickly.

So they try out a little burglary, as a practice run.  They break into Anthony's parents' house.

Dignan's friend Robert Mapplethorpe drives the getaway car.  Because he has a car.

Other than Dignan's taking of a pair of earrings that Anthony bought for his mother, the heist is a success.  Now for bigger and better things.

They rob a bookstore.  Because bookstores are hot.  And carry so much cash.

The clerks see their guns and let them.

Now they go on the lam.  When they check into a motel, Anthony sees the housekeeper Inez and starts chasing her.

And things continue.


Dignan is played by the charming and lovable Owen Wilson.  You know him for his thick and wavy locks of blonde hair.  But here he has a tight crew cut.  He looks like a different man.

Or man-boy in this case.

Dignan is a kid.

Anthony, meanwhile, is played by Owen's real brother Luke.

And another character, Future Man, is played by another Wilson brother, Andrew.

James Caan appears as Mr. Henry.

Wes Anderson wrote the movie with his friend and former roommate Owen Wilson.

The two met at the University of Texas.

And they first made a short film together.  Also called "Bottle Rocket."  That short film got accepted to Sundance.  And in turn caught the attention of James L. Brooks.

Whose film we just watched in Broadcast News (1987).


He took the new filmmakers under his wings, took them to Columbia Pictures, and helped them make the feature-length version of their film.

It did not do good business, but it launched the careers of Wes Anderson and the Wilson brothers.

Now,

What part of Mexico are you from?

Paraguay.