I saw Bottle Shock in Philly. It's not good. It's got not enough Alan Rickman, too much of some guy I don't know in a bad surfer wig, a terrible (TERRIBLE) tacked-on love triangle, and a too-big dollup of wine masturbation. Hey, I liked Sideways but enough is enough and this was too much.
It's too bad too because the story is pretty fascinating. Essentially, in 1976, a British wine merchant in Paris decided to hold a blind taste test between a selection of French wines and Californian wines. In one of the great culinary upsets, the Californian wines won. Great story, right?
Unfortunately, it's a short story and so, to pad it out to feature film length, all sorts of detritus has been flung in the way. Maybe this stuff was true too but it doesn't make a good story. We've got the father-son static between bitterman farmer Bill Pullman and surfer-wig-guy, we've got Freddy RodrÃguez as the great oppressed voice of the vinyard, and a blond hotty intern. Blah.
Too much Napa Valley melodrama and not enough Rickman, nor enough Dennis Farina who was criminally underused.
Sloshing underneath this film like a turgid sea is an overwrought wine-as-religion frottage that is just too much as if the scenes had been brought to the screen by the Napa Valley Chamber of Commerce or the Wine Makes of America. Fondling grapes like testicles while smiling guiltily does not a movie make. Well, a movie for the messy crowd maybe.
If you're tempted by Bottle Shock, then rent Die Hard for your Rickman fix and top it off with some classic Pullman in The Serpent and the Rainbow. Now THAT's a movie.
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