Wes Anderson movies are invariably about family, but he's sharper and less self-indulgent when depicting surrogate families than actual ones — characters who share chromosomes tend to bring out his maudlin side. His latest effort, The Darjeeling Limited, follows three brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and co-screenwriter Jason Schwartzman, as they gallivant across India in search of themselves; the film has been positioned as Anderson's return to form following 2004's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was widely perceived as overly fussy and emotionally constipated.

[...]

It wouldn't matter so much were the movie consistently funny, but the mood is leaden and the whimsy forced, save for a charming fling between Schwartzman's Jack and an Indian tea hostess (Amara Karan). Consequently, when the film turns "serious" about two-thirds of the way through, the effect is not so much jarring (as I assume was intended) as it is dully gratifying: finally, somebody died. (This is also the first time I've found Wilson actively annoying, though that reaction was tempered somewhat by the knowledge of what he's going through at the moment.) What keeps The Darjeeling Limited on the rails, for a while at least, is the Darjeeling Limited: it's amusing to watch a director known for his exacting widescreen tableaux attempt to navigate a locomotive's narrow corridors and cramped compartments, all while keeping everything perfectly centered. Once the brothers were booted off, I quickly lost interest in their petty squabbling, all of which only made me long to revisit the sublime moment in Life Aquatic when Jeff Goldblum, playing poker with the pirates who've abducted him, sees that he's being rescued and decisively says "Fold," only to be instantly shot. Now that's truth.

Excerpt from Mike D'Angelo's review at The Nerve Film Lounge located HERE