Bottle rocket

Wes Anderson’s first feature film is a whimsical tale of three suburban misfits who attempt to commit the perfect robbery but end up in trouble with the local “Godfather” (played by James Caan). The conventions of the crime film are used as launch-pads for Anderson to construct a low-key but nevertheless deeply affecting romance about small-time lives and experience. The script, co-written by Anderson and star Owen Wilson, takes three friends on a mid-Western road trip in which Anthony (Luke Wilson) finds love with a Mexican immigrant, Inez (Lumi Cavazos); Dignan (Owen Wilson) plays out all his fantasies of being a master criminal; and Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave) finds out that blood is, indeed, thicker than water. By finding beauty and comedy in the deeply suburban locales, Anderson is able to satirize the insularity of bourgeois American families and values without being condescending or cynical. The idiosyncratic, colourful and playful mise-en-scene of “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” is clearly evident in Anderson’s debut.