Wealthy businessman Zsa-zsa Korda appoints his only daughter, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists, and determined assassins.
Another stylistic foray into a metaphor-filled world by writer-director Wes Anderson, “The Phoenician Scheme” urges audiences to play along with the lengthy farce at every turn. The film starts promisingly enough with dramatic music foreshadowing some impending peril on a private turboprop in flight. Without warning, an explosion in the back of the plane sucks out the top half of the passenger seated near a window in the rear: action and suspense – goody, goody. Any hope for coherence, however, soon subsequently fades away.
Benicio Del Toro stars as Zsa-zsa Korda, a shady arms dealer seeking funding for the ambitious title scheme that some critics have likened to the travails of a movie producer scrounging for money and dealing with the mercurial personalities often necessary to get a film made. Along the journey, Korda represents a man frequently targeted for assassination – his most recent plane crash is hardly his first – though to his credit, he has more lives than a cat.
After many years of absence, Korda makes contact and reunites with his daughter Leisl (Mia Theapleton), a nun about to take her final vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in a convent. Offering an alternative scenario, Korda informs Leisl that he plans to leave his entire estate and business interests to her in the event of his unlikely demise, at least on a trial basis and assuming she rejects her vocation.
Korda then introduces Leisl to her nine brothers living across the street from his mansion, none apparently worthy of assuming the mantle. Leisl has many questions – about her mother’s death, about the proposed bequeathment, about funding the scheme – to which she receives only vague answers from her father.
Juxtaposed against the events in real life, as they are, are cuts to scenes depicting the afterlife, a place where Korda appears to be headed on a fast track, one way or the other. Dressed in a dirty robe, with a long beard and sad eyes, Korda seems resigned to whatever fate the prophets and supreme beings have in store for him. Hopping from one locale to another, whether a sterile heaven or earthly hell, trying to keep up with Korda’s exploits proves daunting. Further, the shape of his heart continually defies categorization – are his motives benevolent, or are the rumors of his disdainful past true?
On a positive note, the superb supporting cast includes Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Cera, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and an unrecognizable Bill Murray as God. Despite such promise, the movie slings an endless barrage of one not-very-funny line or gag after another in the vain hope that the offbeat humor will elicit laughter from the audience. Unfortunately, the stilted dialogue invariably detracts from any suspension of disbelief or sense of engagement with the storyline.
As both writer and director, Anderson must bear the blame for this misfire that remains unambiguously his. With a runtime of one hour and forty-five minutes, the experience in the theater feels much longer. When yet another chapter heading indicates finally that the epilogue is forthcoming, viewers might understandably sigh audibly in relief.
In Theaters Friday, June 6th
11k
19.8k
1.5k
1.8k