Anthony [Luke Wilson] has just left a mental hospital and met back up with his friend and colleague, Dignan [Owen Wilson]. Dignan has plans for the two of them to be big time burglars. After pulling off a small heist they go into hiding out in the middle of nowhere and stay in a motel. Anthony falls in love with a housekeeper from Parguay who works at the motel, Inez [Lumi Cavazos].

This is Wes Anderson’s first film, which is actually started out as a 13 minute short by the same name. Like most of his films, it is written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. This is exactly what I expected I guess. This is a typical of a Wes Anderson film, meaning that it has little to no action and a lot of character quirks and hilarious conversations between all of these characters. I was reminded a lot of his last released movie “The Darjeeling Limited” in that I was dealing with a three man group and even though these characters weren’t brothers they still had that odd dynamic between each other.

The character of Dignan is the kind that I love Owen Wilson playing. He is just oblivious to his own incompetence, and that is pretty much hilarious. Dignan is the leader of this three-ring circus that is the gang. And he never likes it when he feels that he has no control over the team. It is always hilarious to hear him try to convince Anthony or Bob to keep to a certain course of action. All at the same time he is a selfish guy who falls to his own needs and obsessions. Why is it that Owen Wilson can’t play these roles more, rather than Drillbit Taylor [which was crap btw].

Anthony plays the more sensible of the three. Even though you can see that he knows that this is a bad idea, he always ends up going along with DIgnan just because of friendship. He always tries to make Dignan feel good about his plans. From the beginning when you see him go along with Dignan’s escape plan from the mental hospital even though it is a voluntary hospital. He is the Verne from “Over the Hedge” for this story, in that he doesn’t want to do the job, but he won’t let his friends get pinched because he wasn’t there to save them.

Bob [Robert Musgrave], the final member of our gang, is the driver. He is the equivalent of the last guy you have to pick at recess when you’re making your scrimmage team. He isn’t the brightest guy on the team, or the most gifted, but he’s there. He plays the role of our driver. He doesn’t take much part in the gang’s schemes other than sitting outside and waiting to make a quick getaway. He also has an abusive older brother, John [Andrew Wilson] [otherwise known as the other Wilson brother]. We have no idea why he loves him, but it reminds me of Lee Carter in “Son of Rambow”. He plays more of a straight man role in the comedy than the other two.

This movie is nothing more [or less] than you would expect from any Wes Anderson film. Amazing camera work, soundtrack, and some amazing quirky characters and dialogue that will keep you engaged. Rushmore is still my favourite Wes Anderson film, but this is an okay for me. Nothing that deserves to be on my DVD shelf, but if you’re a big Wes Anderson fan then you will love it.

IMDB says 7.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 78%

I say 7.0/10