Review: ‘The Phoenician Scheme’

May 26, 2025·30 min·2 clips

Wes Anderson's new film features Benicio del Toro as a roguish arms dealer trying to make his daughter his sole heir.

Robert Bound opens with polished mischief. The Phoenician Scheme comes in as a comedy of dodgy deals, narrow escapes, sprawling family lines, and grand infrastructure dreams that smell a little off. Zsa Zsa Korda is no quiet patriarch. Played by Benicio del Toro, he is a roguish tycoon and arms dealer whose favoured daughter, Liesel, is hovering near holy orders. Their bond feels like a sly arm wrestle, and the panel spends time on that father-daughter friction. The sticking point is why Anderson keeps coming back to flawed fathers who trample people and still seem to be asking for absolution. Simran Hans spots a familiar Anderson pattern, linking Korda to professionally consumed fathers who usually stumble back toward their children. Leila Latif pushes the moral pressure higher. Calling Korda complicated starts to sound a bit soft once the conversation notes that he is backing slavery and famine. The jokes stay dry. A New York magazine interview suggests Anderson may have based Korda partly on his late father-in-law, Fouad Malouf, a Lebanese engineer and contractor. That lands with comic unease. The homage sounds affectionate, then suddenly a lot less tidy. Death keeps hanging around, but Korda barely flinches. Repeated attempts on his life become part of the film's rhythm, right down to the calm line, "Myself, I feel safe." Even the screening shoe boxes get folded into the discussion, as a neat image for a film packed with plot devices and cultural references. The mood is admiring without bowing. Bound, Hans and Latif recommend the film, while keeping their wit fixed on its elegant workings and its troubling kindness toward dastardly men.

As heard by us

A brisk Monocle on Culture discussion of Anderson's dodgy tycoon, family strain and deadpan comedy.

Robert Bound opens Monocle on Culture with a brisk look at Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, treating it as a comedy of dodgy deals, dodged death, overextended empires and absurdly long family ties.

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If you want a film review that turns into a spiky family-power debate, start here.

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