Producers: Wes Anderson, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson and John Peet   Director: Wes Anderson   Screenplay: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola   Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Alex Jennings and Jason Watkins   Distributor: Focus Features

Grade: B+

Those familiar with Wes Anderson’s films will know what to expect from “The Phoenician Scheme”—a visually gorgeous but totally artificial aesthetic, lots of oddball characters and twee humor, and substantial representation of his ever-expanding repertory company, some of its members appearing fleetingly in brief cameos.  But in this case he adds a soupçon of genuine, if understated, emotion, something detractors claim is lacking in his elaborately designed cinematic confections.

The titular scheme has to do with the complicated plan of industrial mogul Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) to cap his career as “Mr. Five Percent” (a reference to the nickname given Armenian oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian) by refashioning the infrastructure of the fictional country of Phoenicia using slave labor and money from a wacky assortment of rich investors.  His project is threatened, however, by a number of things.  One is that a consortium of tycoons headed by Excalibur (Rupert Friend) is fixated on derailing it by taking control of the world’s supply of the rivets it requires.  Another is that projected costs have escalated, requiring him to seek more funds from his investors.  And thirdly someone is trying to assassinate him.

That leads to a series of meetings with the investors after Korda survives the latest attempt to kill him by blowing up his private jet.  The first is with Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), who, in addition to thwarting another attempt to kill Korda, shows his support by agreeing to attempt a nearly impossible basketball shot to convince businessmen Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston) to cover part of the funding gap.  The second takes us to the club of Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), where an attack by a bunch of jungle rebels led by highly principled Sergio (Richard Ayoade) leads Korda to take a bullet meant for Bob, convincing him to contribute as well.  Then it’s on to loquacious shipping mogul Marty (Jeffrey Wright), who gives Korda a blood transfusion as well agreeing under pressure to cover part of the gap.  Fourth on the list is Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), a distant cousin who agrees to marry Korda but not to help with his financial difficulty.  That leaves Korda’s chances dependent on his final meeting—with his brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), an odious fellow Korda suspects of having killed Korda’s former wife.  Their reunion does not go at all well.

But while all of these episodes are leavened with deadpan humor and amusing running gags—like Korda’s habit of distributing hand grenades as gifts—together they constitute what’s little more than a gigantic MacGuffin.  We don’t really care about the intricacies of Korda’s industrial scheme, evidence of which resides in a collection of shoe boxes, or even about its proposed end result.  It just serves as the justification for those crazy meetings with his zany investors.  And they, in turn, constitute the engine driving the actual centerpiece of the film—Korda’s attempt to rebuild a relationship with his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton).                 

Liesl is a novice in a nunnery, whom Korda has decided to appoint as his heir on a probationary basis, setting aside his nine sons in the process (another amusing running gag involves the facility with a crossbow one of them has acquired).  He proposes the arrangement to her at a meeting where another character is introduced—Bjørn Lund (Michael Cera), an entomologist Korda’s hired as a tutor but abruptly appoints his secretary.  The three proceed through the adventures that follow together—all the investment meetings, assassination attempts and associated mishaps.  In the process Liesl’s rigidity slowly fades and Bjørn proves to be someone other than he seems even as their attitudes toward one another develop.  Korda, meanwhile, periodically has visions of a trial in some strangely archaic, apparently Balkan locale, where he faces unspecified charges and even takes a bet with God, played by a very unlikely guest star. 

The upshot of this peculiar journey is that Korda experiences a change of heart, altruistically deciding to go ahead with his project to benefit Phoenicia even though it means bankrupting himself.  But as a result his family life is much simplified and made more fulfilling.  Of course, Anderson eschews sentiment in portraying this happy denouement, ending on the note of wry understatement we’ve come to expect of him.

Del Toro gives Korda a bull-like determination that only occasionally slips into a more reflective mood, and Threapleton makes a winningly straitlaced companion for him.  Cera’s goofiness is utilized to the full in what amounts to a double role, while all the other members of the large ensemble seize on the oddities the script provides with ravenous relish; though it may be somewhat unfair to point to some over others, the ferocity of Cranston and Cumberbatch is especially noteworthy.

Of course the film is visually eye-popping, with the opulence and delicacy of Adam Stockhausen’s production design and Milena Canonero’s costumes captured in Bruno Delbonnel’s unerringly precise cinematography; Barney Pilling’s editing is scrupulously true to Anderson’s vision, and Alexander Desplat once again contributes a distinctively oddball musical background, which this time around uses Stravinsky as counterpoint.

“The Phoenician Scheme” may not equal Anderson’s very best work; it’s hard to match “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”  But in its visual artistry and narrative eccentricity, it proves a pretty delectable feast. 

Producers: Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian and Ryan Coogler   Director: Ryan Coogler   Screenplay: Ryan Coogler   Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo, Peter Dreimanis, Lola Kirke, Buddy Guy, Nathaniel Arcand, Saul Williams, Yao, Helena Hu, David Maldonado and Andrene Ward-Hammond   Distributor: Warner Bros.

Grade: B+

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is a vampire movie, but it has more on its mind than depicting the grisliness as the undead creatures rip open the necks of their victims to suck out their blood.  It does that, but only in roughly a third of its two-hour-plus running time.  The rest is devoted to the pernicious exploitation of blacks in American history, the brutality of persistently segregated society in the Deep South of the early twentieth century, and the distinctive culture of ex-slaves and their descendants, represented not only by the blues but the music’s relation to religious beliefs that in legend connect it, and other traditional forms, with spirits and demonic forces.

That’s a heady brew, and Coogler’s control of it is sometimes unwieldy and often heavy-handed.  Yet in his hands the bizarre mixture proves so flamboyantly eye-catching, melodramatically compelling and musically invigorating that the result is intoxicating.

The story is set over the course of a single day and night in the small town of Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932.  After a prologue showing a battered young man, Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), aka Preacher Boy, stumbling into a service conducted by his father Jedidiah (Saul Williams), clutching a guitar and haunted by images of a nightmarish experience, it switches to the previous morning.  Twins Elijah and Elias, aka Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan), introduced in a technically astonishing tableau in which they pass a cigarette back and forth, have returned to their hometown after stints on the front lines in World War I and the gangland milieu of Prohibition-era Chicago.  They intend to use their wad of cash—and a truckload of bootleg booze—to open a juke joint that very night in an abandoned mill they rent from redneck racist Hogwood (David Maldonado).

They quickly set to work getting the place ready and recruiting their principal staff—their cousin Sammie, who’s trying to escape his father’s stultifying control and whose musical talent blows them away; Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), an alcoholic local piano and harmonica virtuoso; and Cornbread (Omar Miller), a sharecropper lured from the cotton fields, who will be their bouncer.  Grocers Grace and Bo Chow (Li Jun Li and Yao) come aboard after she dickers over their share of the take.

The women in the twins’ lives also come into play.  For Smoke it’s biracial Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who’s been passing for white as the wife of a wealthy Arkansas man; she happens to be back in town for the funeral of her mother and berates Smoke for abruptly exiting their affair.  Stack makes a journey to the grave of the child he had with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), who lives beside it in a cabin filled with the instruments of her Hoodoo practice.  Sammie, meanwhile, meets Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a young woman with a controlling husband and an ethereal singing voice.  The steaminess in the scenes of the couples is yet another ingredient in Coogler’s rich cinematic stew.

Meanwhile the film occasionally cuts to Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a desperate fellow fleeing a Choktaw posse led by Chayton (Nathaniel Arcand).  He begs refuge from Joan and Bert (Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis), a couple living in an isolated shack who unwisely invite him in.  As Chayton says, Remmick’s not what he seems—he’s a vampire who, his red eyes gleaming and fangs protruding, turns the unsuspecting couple not only into bloodsuckers but players in a travelling musical trio.

In a nod to tradition about the Faustian bargain that bluesman Robert Johnson purportedly made for his genius, Jedidiah has warned Sammie as the boy leaves the church with his guitar, “You keep dancin’ with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.”  Now, even as Sammie galvanizes the Juke’s opening-night crowd with a song titled “I Lied to You”—in a remarkable sequence that demonstrates not only Coogler’s (and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s) love of elaborate tracking shots but of telling anachronism (the gyrating crowd includes a DJ spinning platters, a rock guitarist, African dancers and even a robed figure in a ceremonial Chinese mask, all pointing to the eternal power of music)—Remmick and his back-up partners show up to request admittance.  The brothers are suspicious, but it’s Annie who recognizes their real nature and acts to repel them when they’re accidently invited in (just one of the ways in which Coogler has incorporated traditional vampire lore into his screenplay).

There follows not only a “From Dusk Till Dawn” melee on a larger scale—and with more of those astounding tracking shots—than that earlier film managed, but a strangely unsettling dance sequence in which Remmick leads a troupe of the Juke patrons he’s turned in an ensemble dance while he does an Irish jig to “Wild Mountain Thyme.”  The crux of the argument by which he tries to lure the hesitant into joining his cult is the promise of perpetual, uninhibited freedom in an eternal life untroubled by pain—an attractive vision for anyone, perhaps, but especially those suffering in a society which traps and exploits them, leaving only a single night of “sinful” abandon to hope for.

Of course there must be a final battle in which many perish, on both sides.  But that’s not the end, because one of the brothers will have to face a second assault the following morning, from Hogwood and his KKK followers, another life-taking cult.

But Coogler isn’t finished yet.  He adds a long sequence during the closing credits featuring blues icon Buddy Guy, a surprising identification and an equally surprising reappearance.  A second addendum at the credits’ end finishes things satisfyingly.  You should be forewarned that if you’re accustomed to departing when the closing roll begins, you’ll be missing out even more than if you forego the stingers in an MCU movie.

“Sinners” is Coogler’s work—that of what used to be called offhandedly an auteur—but like all films it’s a collaborative effort, and the writer-director’s vision is realized superbly by all concerned.  Visually it’s a knockout, with Arkapaw’s gleaming IMAX-bound cinematography brilliantly showing off the period details in Hannah Beachler’s production design and Ruth E. Carter’s costumes.  The VFX (supervised by Michael Ralla) and SFX makeup and prosthetics designed by Michael Fontaine amount to in-your-face pulp, and though the film is long and packed with characters and incident, Michael P. Shawver’s editing is smooth, keeping the various threads clear while avoiding ponderousness.  Equally important is Ludwig Göransson’s score, which embraces both simple guitar riffs and lush orchestral swoons while complementing the blues numbers rather than warring with them (“I Lied to You” is also his work, written with with Raphael Saadiq).  

The cast is also uniformly at one with Coogler’s aims.  Jordan delivers two electrifying turns, managing to capture Smoke and Stack’s similarities while exhibiting, in a nuanced fashion, their differences in attitude (and dress) and their determination to protect one another.  O’Connell makes a genuinely creepy nemesis, at once cheekily upbeat and menacing.  Steinfeld is smolderingly seductive and Lawson prettily enthusiastic, while Lindo is dead on as the boozy veteran.  But the real finds among the outstanding supporting cast are Caton, whose soulful Preacher Boy exudes both ambition and boyish earnestness, and Mosaku, in whose take-charge Annie earthy warmth is exceeded only by steeliness.

There are times when “Sinners” comes across as overstuffed, but the extravagance ends up feeling like inspired lunacy rather than mere bloat, the unlikely juxtaposition of serious sociological commentary and gleeful cinematic shlock working surprisingly well.  The ramshackle Juke turns out to be a mansion with many—and varied—rooms, but each of them has something special to offer, and if sometimes the structure seems a bit shaky, in the end it would be churlish to complain too much over such a grandiose feast.