MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Filmmaker Wes Anderson is known for movies that are whimsical, artificial, jewel-box-like and, to his fans, very funny. They are also pointed critiques, whether he is spoofing 1930s decadence in "Grand Budapest Hotel" or family dysfunction in "The Royal Tenenbaums." Anderson's latest comedy is "The Phoenician Scheme." Critic Bob Mondello says it is about a gazillionaire who becomes slightly conflicted about making one last financial killing.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: We begin on a low-altitude flight. A 1950s robber baron in a pinstripe suit is reading a thick nonfiction book as an explosion takes out the back half of his private plane. Cut to a crash site where he lies amid smoldering wreckage as a newscaster fills in details.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) At this moment, rescue workers are laboring to recover and identify the remains of Zsa-zsa Korda - international businessman, maverick in the fields of armaments and aviation, among the richest men in Europe.
MONDELLO: Korda, looking annoyed, sits up in the wreckage.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) This was Korda's sixth recorded airplane crash.
MONDELLO: His sixth near assassination.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) He is survived by 10 children - nine boys, one nun - his daughter, Liesl.
MONDELLO: While not dead, this brush with death has him uncharacteristically thinking about those survivors. Usually, he's just thinking business.
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BENICIO DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme - my most important project of my lifetime.
MONDELLO: A project that will require cash infusions, for which he turns to loyal investors who are hellbent on...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Disrupting, obstructing, impeding, crippling Korda's enterprise in any manner possible.
MONDELLO: So he spends a lot of time in meetings with folks like money men Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Call it.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Heads.
MONDELLO: ...Who negotiate...
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Heads.
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MONDELLO: ...While playing basketball. Korda, played brusquely by Benicio del Toro, enjoys the art of the deal, but six assassination attempts have sobered even him, so he summons his daughter - a nun in training - who arrives in a habit.
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DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) I've appointed you sole heir to my estate...
MONDELLO: And makes clear she's not in the habit...
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DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) ...Which you may come into sooner rather than later.
MONDELLO: ...Of just going along.
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MIA THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Why?
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) Why, what?
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Why sooner rather than later, since you survived again? And why am I sole heir to your estate? You have eight sons at last count.
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) Nine sons.
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Nine sons. What about them?
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) They're not my heirs.
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Why not?
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) I have my reasons.
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Which are what?
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) My reasons? I'm not saying.
MONDELLO: Liesl, played by Mia Threapleton with a sort of comic deadpan her mother Kate Winslet has patented in other films, agrees to a trial period with this monstrous father of whom she disapproves. Figuring she's about to give up all her worldly possessions anyway, she agrees to learn how he scams allies, cheats rivals and manipulates markets.
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DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) I'm doing a strategy. Listen carefully.
MONDELLO: And filmmaker Wes Anderson brings the rest of us along with visuals that are precious, symmetrical and exquisite, plus cameos by the likes of Scarlett Johansson as Korda's second cousin, Hilda...
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SCARLETT JOHANSSON: (As Hilda) Who shot you?
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) Terrorists from out of town. Help yourself to a hand grenade.
JOHANSSON: (As Hilda) You're very kind.
MONDELLO: ...And Michael Cera...
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MICHAEL CERA: (As Bjorn) Could you imagine falling in love with a man like me, by the way, hypothetically?
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) You're drunk - on three beers.
MONDELLO: ...Who, when he's not wooing the film's nun in training, is discovering bombs on Korda's plane.
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CERA: (As Bjorn) Is this supposed to be here? It was under the lunch trolley.
THREAPLETON: (As Liesl) Oh, dear.
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) How much time does it say?
CERA: (As Bjorn) Eighteen minutes.
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) Perfectly fine. We land in 10.
MONDELLO: Korda is modeled on the 19th century industrialists - Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts - who built oil, steel and railroad monopolies through cutthroat business practices. But it's hard not to think of the unchecked and seemingly uncheckable power of contemporary billionaires when Korda explains why, say, he doesn't bother with having a passport.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation.
DEL TORO: (As Zsa-zsa Korda) I don't. My legal residence is a shack in Portugal. My official domicile is a hut on the Black Sea. I don't live anywhere. I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights.
MONDELLO: That is decently chilling and makes the character's discovery that he actually has a heart feel like a clarion call to robber barons of every stripe. Now, if they could just be persuaded to see "The Phoenician Scheme."
I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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