The Phoenician Scheme review — parts of this film are glorious

You won’t want to take a toilet break during the new Wes Anderson movie. Duck out for five minutes and you may miss Bill Murray being God.

Michael Cera as Bjorn, Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda and Mia Threapleton as Liesl in director Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme. Picture: Focus Features

The Phoenician Scheme (M)
★★★½
105 minutes
In cinemas

You know the expression “It’s more than the sum of its parts”? Wes Anderson’s new film, The Phoenician Scheme, is entertaining, humorous and visually striking but its parts, which include moments involving Oscar winners and other famous names, are the reason not to take a toilet break. Duck out for five minutes and you may miss Bill Murray being God, for example.

If this wheeling and dealing comedy-drama has a mantra it’s that life is about “Who licks whom”. As in who wins. In this quirky movie, the parts lick the sum, largely thanks to the huge talents who want to work with the American filmmaker, even for a few minutes of screen time.

Here’s the set-up: Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is an European business buccaneer who “fiddles” his deals to the displeasure of governments around the world. He has nine sons and one 21-year-old daughter, Liesl (English actor Mia Threapleton), who is training to be a nun.

The action opens with an Air Korda plane being shot from the sky. Korda, known as “Mr Five Per Cent”, survives the crash, as he has five times previously. He’s quoted on the front page of the newspaper: “Ha! I’m still in the habit of surviving.”

Mia Threapleton stars as Liesl. Picture: Focus Features

He meets his daughter, who he has not seen for years, and tells her she is his sole heir.

However he needs her help to pull off the deal he’s been working on all his life, the Phoenician Scheme.

Whether this involves the ancient region on the Mediterranean doesn’t matter, as this is a Wes Anderson film with a lot of interior shots. Korda and his daughter do have to travel to war-torn places, which allows British comedian Richard Ayoade to have a lot of fun as a communist revolutionary.

They are joined by a new tutor, Professor Bjorn (Canadian actor Michael Cera, perhaps best known for the sitcom Arrested Development), who is an expert in insects. They are monitored by a league of governments, led by the US, who want to thwart The Phoenician Scheme and send Korda bankrupt.

To pull off the deal, Korda has to close a financial shortfall. It’s here, as he, his daughter and Professor Bjorn, negotiate “the gap” with possible financiers, all swindlers, that the star actors come out to play. The highlight is a long sequence in which a business disagreement is decided by a basketball shootout in which Korda and Prince Farouk (British Oscar winner Riz Ahmed) compete with likeable rouges Leland (double Oscar winner Tom Hanks) and Regan (Bryan Cranston).

Mia Threapleton as Liesl and Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda. Picture: Focus Features

As they toss the ball towards a basketball hoop suspended from the front of a train, Professor Bjorn and Liesel are in a carriage drinking beer and he asks the nun-to-be if she would marry a man like him. The scene is an absolute joy from start to finish.

It’s matched, a bit later on, with the appearance of Korda’s deranged half-brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch looking a bit like Rasputin). It’s here that “Who licks whom” becomes a matter of life and death. “If something gets in your way,’’ Korda says, “flatten it.”

There’s another dimension that relates to Korda’s near-death experiences. Mostly shot in black and white, it shows him in a place that might be heaven. That’s where we meet God and a host of other Biblical types played by the likes of Willem Dafoe and F. Murray Abraham.

In the real world setting other stars who pop up include Scarlett Johansson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jeffrey Wright and Hope Davis.

It’s all of these parts that make this movie as enjoyable as it is. Its sum is enjoyable too, but it’s not in the same league as the best Anderson films such as The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).