Review by Sees All

I'd been sitting on the fence about seeing THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Word-of-mouth spanned the spectrum from great to awful. This is not to mention that the last movie I saw at the cinema (FRIENDSHIP) was truly dreadful. But I wanted to get out of the house and this was playing nearby. I'm sorry I waited so long. I found THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME a very entertaining caper comedy that was reminiscent of those of the 1960s. (TOPKAPI comes to mind immediately.) Did it make sense? No, not really, but I didn't care. I enjoyed its offbeat sense of humor, and the story moved fast enough to prevent really trying to understand it. The excellent cast seemed to be having a ball and I enjoyed the ride right along with them. My favorite performance was from Michael Cera, which surprised me, but he had me laughing all the way through. He reminded me of Peter Sellers in his heyday. There's a lot of violence in this movie, but it's hard to take it seriously. Don't go expecting profundity or even coherence, and I think you'll have a good time.