What Jesse said:
I got another awesome movie for you to review. It’s called Bottle Shock and it stars Chris Pine (the new Cpt. Kirk) and one of my favorite badass (and unintentionally funny) actors of all time, Alan Rickman!
Rickman is absolutely perfect with his low-key off-beat performance as a wine-pushing guy just trying to make a buck. Yes, the movie’s title does have something to do with wine and the wine industry but the plot is really about people and their obsessions with trying to prove that their stuff is the best. Nothing tastes as sweet as being proven right and these characters’ agendas start to become more and more obvious as the story unfolds… enjoy.
Mike’s verdict:
I feel like there are actually three movies here, and the one represented by the title actually gets the least screen time.
First, there is the snobby wine guy movie. It’s not bad – but it sort of feels like Wes Anderson and Woody Allen came together and the best parts of both of them cancelled each other out. There’s always this feeling like something ridiculous and fantastic is about to happen, but at the end I realized that the anticipation was all I would get. I’m not really sure why this part of the movie got naming rights – the storyline begins and ends the film, but is almost completely absent in the middle.
Next there is the lost boy needs to grow up / serious dad needs to chill out movie. This one was pretty tired. It’s been done many times before and everyone knows that it will end with both men understanding each other and themselves a little better. Bla. Bill Pullman‘s character doesn’t even make sense – I don’t think that a guy who walks away from being a lawyer to start making his own wine would really need to be told to chill out. And I won’t even get into Pine’s character looking completely out of place wearing the Kurt Cobain costume.
The last movie is about a Mexican vineyard worker who wants to get out from underneath the prejudice that surrounds him. I think this would have made the best movie if it had not been buried within the other two. I really liked Freddy Rodríguez‘s character Gustavo, and his storyline could easily fill a feature-length film.
I had hoped that Bottle Shock would live up Jesse’s hype. I really like Alan Rickman and looked forward to his deadpan disdain for life coming through in every scene. Unfortunately, there was so much of the movie that had nothing to do with his character that by the time he finally came back I had forgotten the movie was even about him.
If you want to learn about the California wine scene in the 70s, I’d skip this and find a documentary. If you like seeing Alan Rickman, I’d skip this and watch pretty much anything else that he’s ever been in. If you want to see Bill Pullman have a melt down, I’d skip this and watch the first 2 minutes of The Grudge. But if you like the feeling of anticipation followed by the emptiness of disappointment you should definitely watch this.
I’m going to rate this 3/10, but only because I really like Alan Rickman.