The Phoenician Scheme

Grade: C-

I continue to attend Wes Anderson’s movies to see if lightning will strike, and he’ll come out with something on the level of the early promise he showed. That happened two years ago with Asteroid City, but we’re back to business as usual with the duller-than-dishwater The Phoenician Scheme. The cast is crowded. The visuals are cloudy and washed out. Everyone is deadpan. Nobody smiles. It’s annoying and pretentious and boring and long before it ended, I’d had just about enough of it all.

Benicio Del Toro heads up the stacked cast as “international businessman” Zsa-Zsa Korda. The movie begins with him surviving a plane crash – an apparent assassination attempt. His oft-repeated catch phrase is “Myself, I feel very safe.” The plot has many irons in the fire, but one of the biggest ones is the reconciliation with his daughter Liesl, now a nun. I remember another movie with a nun named Liesl. She was 16 going on 17. As Liesl, Kate Winslet’s daughter Mia Threapleton, I’m guessing, is quite talented. It’s hard to tell, here, because she’s been Andersonized, but I get the feeling she’s a powerful onscreen presence, and I’d love to see her in something where she’s allowed to breathe.

Along the way, Del Toro meets up with many many colorful characters. It’s all very complicated, and I felt apathetic at best. We see everyone so briefly, there’s no time for anything resembling development, and it comes across as more like an opportunity to once again use his stock repertory ensemble, like Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Willem Dafoe, and so many others. If all of this sounds great to you, then knock yourself out. Anderson himself, I imagine, feels very safe.

Anderson has one of the most recognizable styles in cinema, and it hasn’t changed for at least the last 24 years. I have to give him credit for consistency and commitment, even if I don’t like the end product most of the time. He seems to be saying “This is who I am. This is what I do. Take it or leave it. If you enjoy it, great. If you don’t, I’m going to continue doing it this way. You’ll know what you’re getting into.” Short, blunt sentences. Sounds like something one of his characters might say.

Grade: C-