Stealth Entertainment: Bottle Shock
By Scott Lumley
August 18, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com

This drink does not go well with my mustache.
Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year, countless films are released into theaters and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Bottle Shock (2008)

I must admit, before really diving into this review, that I had no intention at all of watching Bottle Shock. It came and went with hardly any impact at all, and was seemingly another Sideways life-and-its-meaning style film with Wine as its subtext and cover.

Apparently, the general public agreed with that assessment. Bottle Shock grossed $4.5 million worldwide, and the majority of that box office came from the United States. In film terms, this is not a rousing success.

As my wife frequently tells me, that was the wrong assumption to make.

Bottle Shock is a wry and amusing look at California wine culture in the early '70s. It does this with a truly odd cast of characters that blend beautifully. It was surprisingly entertaining. As I stated earlier, I literally had no desire to see it. The film happened to come on after The Dark Knight on a local cable channel and I was too lazy to turn it off while I was working on my computer.

Slowly, subtly, the actors, dialogue and story sucked me into this film, to the point where I walked away from my computer and was perched on the couch staring intently at the screen. It wasn't difficult for them to catch me either, not once the story started to unfold.

Bottle Shock stars Chris Pine (Our new Captain Kirk from the Star Trek reboot) as Bo Barrett, Bill Pullman as his father Jim Barrett, Alan Rickman as wine connoisseur/snob Steven Spurrier, Dennis Farina as his fellow wine fan Maurice, Freddy Rodriguez as wine savant Gustavo Brambilla, Eliza Dushku as bartender Joe, Rachel Taylor as agriculture student and conflict generator and general hottie Sam and West Wing alumnus Bradley Whitford as Professor Saunders.

Okay, before I go any farther, that is not only a GREAT cast, it is truly eclectic. When was the last time you saw a cast like this? There's a lot of talent in that list, and they all seem to mesh really nicely.

But as we all know, a great cast means nothing without a great story, and Bottle Shock has one. And as with all great stories, it starts with Alan Rickman's character.

(Okay, I will admit that possibly not EVERY great story starts with Alan Rickman, but the man opened Dogma and was the bad guy in Die Hard. You can understand why I might think that.)

Steven owns a wine shop in france, and it's not a very successful one - perhaps because he feels that he knows more about wine than the French do, and also because he seems to be an smug, elitist Englishman. As a result of his sentiment, he's pretty much an outcast in the French wine community and his shop is floundering. His only friend Maurice does have a successful wine shop, and in his discussions with Maurice, Steven devises a way to increase his visibility with the French wine community.

What Steven devises is a plan to go to California, purchase a number of wines produced by the local farmers of the area and have a blind tasting in France, which will obviously result in the humiliation of the Americans and will raise his profile in his adopted country. This leads to Steven coming to America, renting a rustbucket Pinto and proceeding to interact with all the locals whilst dining on the local cuisine, which frequently consists of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

While he is there, however, he starts to taste the wines that are being produced locally, and they without fail raise his eyebrows in shocked pleasure.

And while Steven is having his eyes opened, Bo and Jim are trying to keep their winery above water by producing wine with what can only be called ruthless perfection. Their employee Gustavo is also trying to make his own wine surreptitiously behind their backs, because while he is loyal to the Barrets and essentially Bo's best friend, to Gustavo wine is a religion, and for him to not make wine would be a sin.

In the midst of all that comes young broke student Sam, and she brings conflict to their relationship but acts as their muse at the same time. Bo and Gustavo compete mightily for her affections, but in the end somebody has to get the girl and this does cause the requisite hard feelings. Naturally, the film shows this in true California style, with the two angered friends arguing vigorously over a bottle of Gustavo's wine.

There's a lot of subtext in this film swirling around the main story of Steven's blind tasting. But none of it gets overly convoluted and it all does tie in nicely. The film continues to introduce character after character, but they don't blend into the background like robots, they're all unique, likable and even memorable.

One particularly well done example of this occurs about two-thirds of the way through the film when Steven stops in a little farm to sample some of the wine. Steven sits in a rocking chair sipping a white wine when the silent and extremely weathered farmer walks back over to him with a bowl of guacamole and some tortilla chips. Steven gives him a hard look as guacamole had really not gained popularity anywhere at the time, and the poor farmer gives him the most snaggletoothed smile in history, trying to convey how happy he is that Steven is even there tasting his wine.

At the end of the scene, Steven reluctantly takes a bite of the guacamole on a small chip, nods and gives the tiniest of smiles to the farmer, his expectations not only met, but fantastically exceeded yet again.

The whole film is like this. It's quiet and non-violent; there's no nudity and very little swearing. It's a firm PG film in my book. Yet after watching Bottle Shock, it felt like I'd been walking in the sunshine or had just enjoyed a very nice meal. This movie is fulfilling in a lot of ways.

So if you happen to be in the DVD rentals, or stumble across Bottle Shock on cable, do stop and give this one some time. Like a fine bottle of Chateau Montelena, this one will satisfy you in ways you just never thought it would.