Movie Review: Bottle Rocket (1996)

A dramatic comedy about dim-witted friends fumbling through life, Bottle Rocket is as intentionally aimless as its protagonists.

Anthony Adams (Luke Wilson) leaves a voluntary mental institution, but his friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) insists on making the departure look like an escape. A petty but lovable wannabe criminal with grandiose ideas, Dignan has a 75-year plan for the two of them to succeed in life, starting with a trial theft of Anthony's childhood home. They then team up with their rich friend Bob (Robert Musgrave), because he has a car, to plan another heist.

Dignan is obsessed with impressing his former boss Abe Henry (James Caan), a flamboyant a criminal hiding behind a landscaping business. Anthony, Dignan and Bob rob a bookstore and escape to a motel hideout, where Anthony falls in love with the maid Inez (Lumi Cavazos). The romance persists despite a language barrier, but complicates Dignan's ambitious agenda for further criminal exploits.

The directorial debut of Wes Anderson, who co-wrote the script with Owen Wilson, Bottle Rocket does spend a lot of time moving sideways, waiting for something to happen. But chuckles can always be found within a group of dimwits, and while it's both dangerous and easy to make fun of dullards, the film occasionally sparkles. 

The best moments arrive courtesy of Dignan as the unforgettable prototypical friend who is just a little off. Owen Wilson revels in the role, fully investing in a character familiar with leadership concepts and buzzwords and genuinely trying hard to win friends and influence people, but in all the wrong directions. 

In the middle act, the romance between Anthony and Inez is sweet and believable, the language barrier a sturdy source of amusement. But while the couple are cute thanks to Lumi Cavazos' persistently hopeful attitude as Inez, they do take away from the focus on Dignan as the narrative driving force. The love affair eventually blunts momentum and Anderson starts looping in lazy circles.

The visual style celebrates eccentricity rubbing against bland, featureless landscapes in the middle of nowhere, non-conformance providing the only source of inspiration and excitement. The madcap finale ramps up both the humour and pathos, dreams colliding with limitations to good effect. When Dignan is in full and oblivious flight, this rocket takes a wacky ride.



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Movie Review: Legally Blonde (2001)

A comedy about looking past superficialities, Legally Blonde celebrates do-anything empowerment with gloss, humour, and old-fashioned kindness.

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is a fashion merchandising major at a California college, living the sorority lifestyle centred on shopping, make-up, and manicures. She is crushed when boyfriend Warner (Matthew Davis) dumps her because she is unsuitable for his senator-in-the-making lifestyle as he heads out to Harvard Law School. 

Stung into action, Elle applies herself and remarkably gets accepted into Harvard Law School, but upon arrival finds Warner already has a new girlfriend in Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair). Elle persists and makes a good impression in the class of Professor Callahan (Victor Garber). She earns an internship opportunity while catching the eye of Callahan's assistant Emmett (Luke Wilson), and still finds time to teach dowdy manicurist Paulette (Jennifer Coolidge) some sassy skills.

An adaptation of Amanda Brown's book based on her real-life experiences, Legally Blonde is fun, frivolous and wears its silliness with pride. The story of a smart woman deciding to ditch the ditzy lifestyle and focus on academics embraces concepts of self-belief and re-defined focus, but all themes are treated with feather touches. Director Robert Luketic keeps the mood bouncy, and pokes away with equal measures of playfulness at the vacuous sorority lifestyle and law school arrogance.

However, the air of dismissiveness sometimes borders on grating. Elle and her sorority sisters are treated as total airheads. The effort required to enter law school is reduced to Elle cramming for one exam and flaunting her bikini body in the application video. At Harvard the students are a combination of snarky and instinctively rude, and Elle's pathway to influencing a high-profile murder case is ridiculously short.

But this is a comedy, and Reese Witherspoon makes the most out of the role, ensuring Elle emits flashes of wit and a continuous stream of kindness, whether in her sorority or serious modes. Selma Blair is a suitable brunette nemesis, but Matthew Davis is an unfortunate non-entity, although his lack of presence underlines the futility of sorority women obsessing over useless men.

Within the final act of the brisk 96 minutes, Legally Blonde crams in courtroom antics featuring a murdered patriarch, his snooty daughter (Linda Cardellini), an accused step-mother (Ali Larter) and her alleged Latin lover, with no less than Raquel Welch making an appearance. It's a story-within-a-story, all to prove that understanding the latest shoe fashion trends and the fundamentals of a perm are essential legal skills.



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