The people who made "Bottle Shock" obviously love their wine. They're not that crazy about the French. And they are firm believers in the screenwriting rule of leaving no underdog-formula cliche unused, even when your movie is already dangerously overloaded with them.
Based on the events that led to the 1976 "Judgment in Paris," in which a blind tasting by a panel of connoisseurs declared two California wines superior to their French counterparts, "Bottle Shock" is a shaggy, eager-to-please comedy about how Napa Valley got onto the world's wine map. Director Randall Miller, who also cowrote the screenplay, seems to have learned everything he knows about movies from watching TV: "Bottle Shock" often feels out of place on the big screen, but it would probably play a lot better as a weekly half-hour TV show.
The film is ripe with characters whose dilemmas are sitcom-ready, such as the long-haired slacker Bo (Chris Pine, soon to be Capt. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' coming "Star Trek" movie) whose vintner dad Jim (Bill Pullman) is obsessed with creating the perfect Chardonnay. Whenever father and son are at odds, which is often, they settle their differences by trading punches inside a makeshift boxing ring. Cue the laugh track.
There is also the Mexican vineyard worker, Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez), who can identify any wine and its vintage from a single taste. Bo and Gustavo are best buds, until they both fall for a new intern (Rachael Taylor), who must decide between the two guys. Cue the violin.
Best of all, there is the British wine merchant Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) living in Paris who comes up with the idea for the contest as a way of drumming up business for his struggling wine shop. Rickman, who plays stiff-lipped snobs better than any actor alive, has great fun with Spurrier's fact-finding trip to California, where he's come to taste the wines and is surprised by how good they are. "I'm not an expletive," Spurrier tells an American who admits he doesn't like him. "It's just that I'm British and -- well, you're not."
Most of the characters in "Bottle Shock" are based on real people -- Gustavo, for example, is actually Gustavo Brambila, who founded the Gustavo Thrace winery a decade ago -- so wine lovers with a little knowledge about Napa and its players will find its factual basis passable entertainment. The movie also does an exceedingly good job of making you thirsty. I was parched when "Bottle Shock" was over. But unlike a nice Sauvignon Blanc, I wasn't sorry to see it go.
