Bottle Rocket

1996 Comedy

A bright, optimistic caper comedy from first-time director Wes Anderson, Bottle Rocket focuses on a group of young Texans aspiring to become master thieves. Their leader is Dignan (Owen C. Wilson, who also co-wrote the screenplay), an upbeat if naive charmer who convinces his friends Anthony (Wilson's brother Luke Wilson) and Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave) to enter the crime business. After their first heist, a bizarrely-executed robbery of a local bookstore, the trio goes on the lam, taking up residence in a border hotel where Anthony falls in love with a maid played by Lumi Cavazos. When the three buddies decide that they need to return to the real world, they hook up with a master con-man (James Caan) who sends them on a daring -- if ill-concieved -- mission.

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Owen C. Wilson, Luke Wilson, Robert Musgrave, James Caan, Lumi Cavazos

Reviews

  • The title refers to cheap fireworks that fizz before they flame out quietly, and that's what three Southwestern slackers do in this amiable heist movie-cum-road flick.

    - Entertainment Weekly

    19 January 2013

  • Rocket flies with comic-kaze crooks.

    Mike Clark - USA Today

    19 January 2013

  • A hilarious, inventive and goofy breath of fresh air.

    Desson Thomson - The Washington Post

    19 January 2013

  • A mildly facetious tone limits Anderson's film to the lightweight, but the collective enthusiasm behind this debut effort still comes through. What's best about Bottle Rocket is not the laid-back pranks that inflate its story to feature length but the offbeat elan with which that story is told.

    Elvis Mitchell - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

  • Gets by on quirky charm and slacker chic-but just barely.

    Rita Kempley - The Washington Post

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Debut of the Year

    Lone Star Film & Television Awards (1996)

  • Wes Anderson

    Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (1998)

  • Best New Filmmaker

    MTV Movie Awards (1996)