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A Pint of Thunderbird Would Be More Fun Than This

In the near corner, the snooty French wine connoisseurs. In the far corner, the young, upstart, clueless, hippie, Napa Valley rednecks, who own some grapes. Cue the music. It's Rocky 37 in "I got ya grapes right here". Perhaps that was the working title but now it's called "Bottle Shock". Okay, it's not another Rocky movie and no, Sylvester Stallone isn't now the owner of a vineyard, but what we do have is the American underdog, against all odds, against the all powerful French. The weapon of choice is a light Chardonnay.

Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) is a British chap who owns a small wine shop in Paris that has zero customers despite his clearly evident knowledge of wine. Maurice (Dennis Farina) owns a travel agency next door but prefers to spend his afternoons sampling Mr. Spurrier's wines, while behaving like the stereotypical loud and garish American. Spurrier's attempts to hobnob with the cream of the wine community in France are going nowhere, much like his business.

While we watch Spurrier's fruitless attempts at becoming someone we also watch a vineyard in Napa Valley, California that is attempting to get their fledgling business going. The vineyard is run by Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) along with the help of his son Bo (Chris Pine) and Gustavo (Freddy Rodríguez). Jim is unhappy with the results and vacillates between trying and quitting. Bo is still living the hippie life, nine years after Woodstock, as his father enjoys pointing out repeatedly. Director Randall Miller reinforces this point with a soundtrack of 70's music, most of it not very top notch. It's unclear if that is on purpose or not. It creates a feel of "That 70's Show" of television fame. It's easy to picture Ashton Kutcher in the role of Bo and if the film had been made a few years earlier he quite likely could have played the Bo character.

Spurrier decides that he should explore the vineyards of California in order to see if it is worthy of a competition with French wine. His world of refined Britishness collides with the jeans and cowboy boots of Napa Valley and the results are hilarious or at least that is the assumed intended audience reaction. It falls far short of its goal. The result is a too cute for words television movie of the week.

After a few very predictable minor twists and turns it's time for the big showdown in Paris between the oh so refined snobs and the bright-eyed, sweet and innocent good guy Americans. It's not difficult to guess how it all turns out. "Bottle Shock" is based on a true story and one can only hope that the truth was more entertaining than this fictionalized version.