When is a Wes Anderson movie just a movie? Ruining the plot of The Phoenician Scheme is actually hard because aspects of the story and the stakes are somewhat intentionally opaque. In fact, because so much of The Phoenician Scheme is quite literally about dying, it approaches a philosophical myth, and is only pretending to be a heist thriller. If one of Ian Fleming’s 1950s James Bond novels was about Bond in purgatory, and featured art deco illustrations in between the clipped prose, that would be The Phoenician Scheme. The Phoenician Scheme is currently streaming on Peacock.