Thursday, November 15, 2007

A movie review of "The Darjeeling Limited"

I recently went to see "The Darjeeling Limited", a comedy/drama starring Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzman. Unfortunately, a better title for this trainwreck might have been "The Boredfeeling Unlimited". The story is about three brothers who get together for a vacation in India, and decide to visit their mother who is a nun there. Most of the film is set on a train.
To be honest, the only reason I thought the film would be any good was because Owen Wilson was in it. But he is too restrained, and lacks the spontanaeity and wildness that he is known for and that made his roles in films like "You, Me and Dupree" and "The Wedding Crashers" so funny. He doesn't seem to be having any fun. Brody is equally bland, and Schwartzman at least gets to have fun playing a kind of parody of Tom Cruise: not quite as handsome as Cruise, but otherwise very similar (cool, suave personality, short stature, dark haired, big nose, etc.).
Unfortunately the movie is too offbeat for its own good, trying to find humor in the interactions of the three main characters with each other and with the local Indian people. It's clear that the director Wes Anderson was trying to find humor in the juxtaposition of Wilson the "wild and crazy" one and Brody the "voice of reason". But like I said, Wilson was not wild and crazy enough to be amusing. Cameos by Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston add very little to the storyline, and by the time the movie is over, you may be thinking one of two things: "Wow, either that was a really deep movie and I just didn't get it, or it was a really terrible, pretentious and boring movie." I'm betting that possiblity number two is closer to the truth.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good review, Jeremy. Thanks for warning me off. I'll save my $7.50 for a better movie.