Ben O'Shea- The Phoenician Scheme: It's Actually Quite Hard To Follow

Our movie guy Ben O'Shea reviewed the new star-studded movie The Phoenician Scheme. It's got Benicio Del Toro in it so Lisa was already on board. Plus throw in Tom Hanks , Bill Murray and many others. Ben gave his thoughts on the movie and whether it's worth going to see.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Benoe. I don't know if you
notice about him, ben but I have had a long
thing for Benitzio del Toro, who does it. But I
love Benicio del Toro as well romance, not in the
way I do, girl. He is wonderful. He is wonderful,

(00:26):
and he is the lead actor of this new Wes
Andersen movie. And like when you think about Wes Andersen,
I reckon, a lot of people either love him or
they don't really get into it because he's got a
very unique esthetic. His films are very whimsical, very stylized,
and you either have to lean into that and go, yes,
I'm on board people. Some people might find it incredibly infuriating, okay,

(00:51):
but you know, I'm one of those people who certainly
have loved Wes Anderson movies in the past. It's a
bit like getting a gift on a special occasion. You
look for to it, coming it arrives, it's elaborately packaged.
You open it up. Sometimes it's something that you can't
really find a use for, but that's okay. You try
and get your money back. But his best movies movie
is like Rushmore. Yeah, Grand Budapest Hotel was amazing. Those

(01:17):
those sort of films are really really good. Some of
some of the more recent ones, he's maybe leaned a
little bit too far into the style over the substance
Asteroid City. His most recent movie was It Was. It
was maybe a bit too whimsical, maybe a bit too silly.
And and the one before that, The French Dispatch, had
Benizio del Toro in it. He made a cameos, this

(01:37):
sort of mentally disturbed artist who is incarcerated for murder.
Didn't have a lot of dialogue, but he was an
absolute scene stealer, as he always is. And that movie
and what and Wes Anderson watching Benincio in that film thought,
you know what, this guy has got something and I
want to collaborate with him again. I'm going to write
a movie, write a character, specifically Benitzio del Toro, and

(02:00):
in it he plays this sort of It's set in
the nineteen fifties. He plays this kind of like European
tycoon Ja Jacques Corda, who's meant to be a bit
like an Aristotle on Nassas type, so sort of an
unscrupulous businessman who does deals, maybe a little bit on
the dodgy side, and he has this idea of this grand,

(02:21):
ambitious infrastructure project that is going to totally transform the
you know, sort of the fictional country of Phoenicia, which
once upon a time was a real country. And it
involves lots of different components. There's a canal, there's a
tunnel that there's a dam, all of these kind of things,
and it's going to make him super rich. It's going
to establish his legacy. The only problem is he has

(02:43):
a lot of enemies. They're always trying to assassinate him.
So Pernincio Delta Torre's character, his playing has been blown
up six times. He always manages to survive and every
time he's in sort of a bit of a predicament.
His line throughout the film is, oh myself, I feel
very safe, even though just can go and around him.
And so his growing power and influence in Europe has

(03:06):
come to the attention of the American government. They're not
too happy with him, and so they want to sort of,
you know, sort of use a bit of espionage and
subterfuge to undermine this huge business enterprise, and they do
it in the most mundane Wes Andersen way. So they
decide to drive up the price of something called bashable rivets,
so just a rivet that is used to make the

(03:27):
train tracks and the tunnels and this and that. So
they make the rivets go from ninety nine cents up
to a dollar forty nine, and just the overall cost
of that on a supply blows out the budget. And
so that sets up the plot for Jajar Quarter too
has to go to all of his partners in this
enterprise and renegotiate the terms of the deal, and in

(03:49):
that way it speaks to modern times, like you'd be
watching this going, oh, this is a bit like a
trumpy out of the deal vibes happening here. And so
he goes to and when he's negotiating with his partners,
as always Anderson Films do, it's got the most star
studded cast, like one faction is run by Tom Hanks
and Brian Cranston, and they end up having a basketball
one on one with Beniciet del Toro, which sounds like

(04:12):
the most bonkers scene, and it's amazing. You've got Scarlet Johansson,
You've got Rami Malick, you've got Jeff the Great Jeffrey Wright,
and you've got Benedict Cumberbat's just thrown drone in there
as well. So you've got all of these different groups
kind of competing with each other negotiating over these deals.

(04:33):
And then and then on top of it all, you've
got what's going on in Beniciet de Torre's character's own household,
in his personal life. And he's got his estrange daughter, Lisel,
who he brings back into the fold because of all
the assassination attempts, makes her his sole heir to the fortune,
and brings her in on this scheme. She's a novice nun.
She is his moral compass, sort of the good angel

(04:55):
sitting on his shoulder, and is not into any of
this dodgy dealing. What's whoever? And she's played by Mia Threppleton,
who is a name no one's ever heard of. She's
a newcomer, is amazing, shouldn't be a surprise. She's Kate
Winslet's daughter, Oh very much, but i'd say the name
because I was just reading about her this morning. Yeah,
but she's nono baby. She is amazing, she is her

(05:19):
career is phil be incredible. She's amazing. And and Beniczio's
character has got a tutor from Oslo played by Michael
Sarah Beyond, and he's got the most strange accent, and
there's a bit more to his character as well. So
it's funny, it's whimsical. I will warn people. The first
thirty minutes where Benitzio is explaining this scheme is so

(05:44):
dense with information it's actually quite hard to follow. You
have to listen because every little detail is important. And
even though some of it seems extremely boring in that
first thirty minutes, as the film gets going, it all
starts to make sense. And Benitsio that's why you go
see this film. He's a he's generally a character who

(06:05):
has few words, very tense, intense guy, usually killing people,
sort of the medicine that the menacing, tough guy. This
is probably the role of his career. He has more
dialogue than he's ever had in a movie, more nuanced
to a character. He's hilarious, so funny, he's so funny.
Were considering that how many it doesn't really matters because

(06:27):
I'm giving it for WHOA. It's a fun film. It
might not be for everybody because of the Wes anders
In factor. Stick with it and the end is you know,
it's a real genuine heart film playing a premium for
the Rippets. Yeah, that's