The Phoenician Scheme 2025 (Written Review)

 

The Phoenician Scheme

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera

Writers: Roman Coppola, Wes Anderson

Director: Wes Anderson

 ** and a 1/2 *'s out of five.

Benicio del Toro plays a business tycoon who with his estranged daughter(Mia Threapleton) try to achieve business deals with other companies while also avoiding assassination attempts

When Rushmore premiered in 1999 it introduced many to the work of one Wes Anderson.  He already made a name for himself in 96 when Bottle Rocket was a modest hit on the indie circuit.  But it was his 2^nd feature about the very confident albeit worst student, Max Fisher that really put Anderson on the map as a filmmaker to watch out for.

After that he made a string of critically acclaimed flicks including, The Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest Hotel and more.  A lot of them are a part of the Criterion Collection and Anderson has cemented himself as a director whose style you know even without seeing any of his movies. 

His 12^th feature film, The Phoenician Scheme features the usual tropes one associates with a Wes Anderson film.  Quirky characters who speak in a monotone like delivery,check. Use of framing that causes attention to itself, check. Set designs that don’t try to look like anything real but they look so cool you don’t even care, check.  While his other movies had those elements they also for the most part told a good story.   This one I’m afraid does not.

All throughout the runtime, I was asking myself what is the main goal of our main character.  What is the basic drive that is putting Bencio del Toro’s character on this adventure and I couldn’t think of anything.  Is he trying to do good for his daughter because of his shady past. Wait, did he have a shady past.  What was his business and why were so many people trying to kill him.  There are jokes and reffrences to things I felt like I needed a PHD to fully understand to emit even a small chuckle.  The only scene that made me laugh was a scene featuring Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as two executives who make a wager by playing basketball with our lead characters.

 

 Seeing that this was co written by Roman Coppola who also helped pen some of my least favorite, Wes Anderson films like The Dajeeling Limited and The French Dispatch.  It was clear why I wasn’t a fan of these movies.  I miss his collaborations with Owen Wilson who helped pen his first three movies. Including my personal live action favorite, The Royal Tenenbaums.  Those had rich vibrant characters who had an arch to them.  Even his collaboration with Noah Baumbach(yes, the co writer of Barbie) resulted with some great gems including Fantastic Mr. Fox(my favorite of all his films) and Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.  But Coppola also helped write Moonrise Kingdom and Asteroid City and I liked those than the other ones I mentioned. So what was it that I didn’t like about his latest.

For me,  The Phoenician Scheme lacked any characters I wanted to spend any time with. It didn’t hold my attention with it’s premise or plot.  While it does have some fun visual sight gags and one funny line about hand grenades.  I’m hoping Wes Anderson returns to stop motion animation for his next film.

I'm a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association.  Read my bio below.

https://mnfilmcriticsassociation.com/2024/09/25/jasonhemming/