Washed up and past his prime, Steve Zissou (Murray) leads his team of misfits on one last mission to find the mysterious, and possibly non-existant Jaguar shark that ate his life-long friend.

A possible long lost son (Wilson), and a pregnant journalist (Blanchett) join the expedition just to complicate things. Set mostly at sea on thier clapped out boat the Belafonte, this has some fantastic dry humour. The cinema enjoyed a good tear inducing laugh (though they were students…) which seems rare nowdays. Wierd, eccentric with surreal happenings it manages to produce some powerful characters whose motivations, even against the bizzare circumstances, are carefully developed.

This has to be Bill Murray at his sardonic understated best with some great Bowie songs in Portuguese as soundtrack.

“The shark! the shark ate him!” “Is he dead?”