A delightful extravaganza with an engaging plot.

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2014)

The latest offering from director Wes Anderson, who is known for his own style of presenting a magical make-believe world on the screen, this is a fine example of an imaginative art of storytelling taking you into a different world of the past quite impressively. Narrating the story of a vintage hotel, the film has glimpses of more than one genres including illegitimate affairs, crime, love, murder, theft, jail-break, mystery, chases and much more. But in spite of that it never puzzles you due to an absorbing treatment of an interesting concept and some brilliant performances by a rare cast ensemble with many reputed names.
Set in different time zones of the twentieth century, it is mostly narrated in flashback and tells us about the life a young 'Lobby boy' and his experiences with his boss,Mosieur Gustave. The lobby boy known as Zero is now the owner of The Grand Budapest and the film is all about his journey from joining the hotel to the present status of a sad, lonely man owning the mansion and much more. In the story told of the past, as one of richest regular visitors of the hotel suddenly dies, she leaves a precious antique painting for Gustave to be her parting gift in the will and that's from where the whole saga of crime and deceit begins involving the young Zero.
The film unfolds like an exciting fast paced tale in a bedtime storybook of the young ones and presents many charming cameos of prominent names such as Jude Law, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Tom Wilkinson, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe and more. Along with the lead roles played by Ralph Fiennes & F Murray Abraham with a splendid portrayal of the young zero by Willem Dafoe.
A kind of wacky comedy, it also subtly showcases the war scenario of those times & three different eras of century through some smartly written witty dialogues, an excellent background score, well detailed art direction and a worth experiencing cinematography (particularly the snow chase sequence at the mountains) which preferably needs to be seen at the big screen. The storyline also has a refreshing emotional angle between its leading male characters and then has a few surprising insertions too like a turbaned Sikh participating in a sequence happening in the Eastern Europe region of the 1930s.
But at the same time, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL doesn't offer any great energetic crescendo and is also not for the ones watching Hollywood Cinema mainly for their mainstream well promoted films releasing worldwide. This is for the niche audiences who are more into the offbeat movies and can easily relate to this eccentric kind of story-telling not interested in giving any kind of simulated high through an overdose of computer graphics or some loud treatment. So if you love watching this specific genre then you are sure going to enjoy The GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL largely.