The Grand Budapest Hotel is very grand and heartwarming and one of the first different types of films of 2014.

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2014)

If you follow the film industry as much as I have, you must surely know about director Wes Anderson. Anderson is a very quirky filmmaker who came into the public eye in the late 90's and then developed a following. His is a type of filmmaking that you either love or hate but either way, it is definitely different compared to what usually comes out of the film.
Anderson's newest film is The Grand Budapest Hotel and the most misleading thing about this film is that its not all about this hotel. Sure, the plot centers around the hotel but the story is about an art heist in the 1930's involving characters Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and Zero (Tony Revolori) in the fictional town of the Republic of Zubrowka. The heist leads to deaths, a friendship, a family's fortune and of course the Grand Budapest Hotel.
I can't say that I've seen many art heist films because there aren't many of them. The art heist story is quite convoluted and can be on the dull side but it is very smart with depth and the story involves much more than a typical heist. The story contains many elements ranging from black comedy to action/thriller scenes. The movie has a type of depth that can't really be described in full to someone who hasn't seen it.
What makes this an even more interesting art heist story is how Anderson's filmmaking style fits into it. He makes this story very quirky and strange; so much so that is a borderline "art house" film. It is a type of style that is again hard to describe and frankly it is best when watching this to just go with it. Anderson brings many characters to the story including big name actors like Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson. Yes, it's too many characters to keep track of at times but only Anderson could have gotten together a cast like this and it is very inspiring to see a cast like this in an "indie type" film.
I don't see The Grand Budapest Hotel as a film that I will be watching very often nor is it close to the type of films I'm normally into but Wes Anderson really makes this film worthwhile. He does so much here to tell the story and make it unfold into something really good and something we could not imagine being so good. The Grand Budapest Hotel is very grand and heartwarming and one of the first different types of films of 2014.