The Phoenician Scheme (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

The Phoenician Scheme

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (2025)

Starring Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Tonio Arango, Aysha Joy Samuel, Mohamed Chahrour and Imke Büchel.

Screenplay by  Wes Anderson.

Directed by Wes Anderson.

Distributed by Focus Features. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13.

The Phoenician Scheme feels like what would happen if someone asked an AI program to create an enormously pretentious, eccentric approximation of a Wes Anderson film.

The story makes no sense (granted, that is kind of a staple in Anderson’s work, even in his good films), the characters are blank, arch and affected, the situation is self-consciously precious and silly, the action is not exciting, and the comedy mostly isn’t all that funny. And we have to sit through at least two or three of Anderson’s “lists” of common items that are supposedly important for the characters.

Anderson may be a critic’s darling as a filmmaker, but he has long-since becomes sort of a parody of himself. In fact, he’s not even as good as a parody. The most entertaining thing with Anderson’s name attached to it in recent years was the Saturday Night Live parody of a Wes Anderson horror film, “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.” (If you haven’t seen it, check it out on YouTube. It is absolutely spot on.)

The Phoenician Scheme, on the other hand, is neither entertaining nor spot on. It’s simply a reminder of all of Wes Anderson’s worst traits as a filmmaker. His films and characters are self-consciously peculiar, emotionally repressed, and living in a kitschy clap-trap world.

I mean, who would have thought that a movie with Bill Murray doing a cameo as God could be so completely unstimulating?

Sure, some stuff in The Phoenician Scheme is kind of funny – I especially liked a gag where the lead character fired his airplane pilot in the middle of a potential plane crash – but not enough to make this film even close to bearable. To paraphrase an old cliché; much more of this movie is funny “strange” than it is funny “ha-ha.”

It’s nice to see Benicio del Toro getting an important role again after so long, but it’s a shame that it is this one. He plays a millionaire named Zsa Zsa Korda who has a ridiculously complex scheme to make money for… something or other, it doesn’t really matter.

And what’s the deal with the name? The only Zsa Zsa I have ever heard of is the old actress Zsa Zsa Gabor. Apparently, it really is a Hungarian name – but, as shown by Gabor, it is a woman’s name. And this Zsa Zsa is a man. So is this supposed to be some kind of joke? And if so, is it supposed to be funny? You never know about stuff like that in a Wes Anderson movie.

You see, that’s the problem. The Phoenician Scheme is a long series of inside jokes – like what’s the deal with Benedict Cumberbatch’s beard? – that I’m just not sure that I get. In fact, I’m not sure that much of anyone will get them. Therefore, as so often happens in an Anderson film, if you don’t get where he’s going you just sit there slack-jawed, wondering what the point was.

To show how off the beaten path this film is, Michael Cera plays the most interesting and best character. Let’s face it, the slightly nerdy Cera isn’t known for standing out in casts with the aggressively watchable cinematic likes of del Toro, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlet Johannsen, Murray and Cumberbatch.

But this isn’t a normal cinematic world. It’s a world from the quirky and twisted mind of Wes Anderson. Either you get it, or you don’t. Sad to say, I really, really don’t. The poster reads, “If something gets in your way: flatten it.” You won’t find anything flatter than The Phoenician Scheme.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: May 30, 2025.