Eccentric and quirky characters; symmetrically framed, pastel-shaded shots; estranged fathers trying to rekindle broken relationships with their dysfunctional families — all the hallmarks of a Wes Anderson movie permeate The Phoenician Scheme, the stylistic filmmaker’s 13th feature.

Nicknamed “Mr. Five Percent” and loosely based on the infamous Armenian multimillionaire Calouste Gulbenkian, Benicio del Toro disappears into the role of Zsa-zsa Korda — a furtive financier and prodigious art collector who finds himself in the crosshairs of both an assassin and the United States government, as he scrambles to juggle the intricacies of his latest shady development project in Phoenicia, the coastal strip of the Levant, and secure the financing to bring it to life.

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Beneath the aesthetic frills that festoon his narrative, Anderson’s Phoenician Scheme is, at its core, a story about redemption and faith. Korda is a dishonest conman and avowed atheist vying to reconnect with his daughter Liesl (brilliantly portrayed by Mia Threapleton, who exudes the alluring coyness of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Margot from The Royal Tenenbaums). Liesl is a postulant whom he wishes to name as his heir after deciding that surviving this many assassination attempts (the film entertainingly opens with Korda crash-landing his own plane after it has been bombed) can no longer be chalked up to coincidence.

Traveling exclusively aboard his private jet in search of financial backers, Korda discovers a bundle of dynamite with a 15-minute countdown to detonation. “We’re landing in eight minutes. I feel perfectly safe,” he concludes, unbothered. He repeats the latter phrase throughout the film, deadpan, as a running gag whenever another assassination attempt looms.

For all its talk of faith and mortality, the film never loses its comic edge. The writing is sharp. The jokes, for the most part, land. The film is understated but genuinely hilarious, and I laughed a lot. Cleverly underscoring his shady business dealings, Korda exclaims each time he spots a would-be assassin: “I recognize this assassin! He used to work for me.” In another recurring bit, he carries a box of hand grenades everywhere he goes, which he offers to his hosts like chocolates: “Help yourself to a hand grenade.”

Among the ensemble, the standout is Michael Cera, who seems as though his entire career has been building toward a Wes Anderson role. He plays Bjorn, a Norwegian entomologist and family tutor whom Korda inexplicably brings along for the ride — adorned in corduroy, bowtie, a mustache to match, and a highly entertaining cartoonish Icelandic accent. He’s absurd, he’s committed, and he feels naturally at home.

As with all Anderson films, the cinematography is sublime. In one assassination attempt, Korda is rendered unconscious and ascends to a heavenly judgment room — shot in stark black and white — where Bill Murray, as God, among others, deliberates Korda’s fate on Heaven and Earth. It’s these recurring hallucinations that chip away at Korda’s hardened exterior and nudge him toward both God and his family, as he loosens his obsession with wealth and learns, almost unwillingly, to place loved ones ahead of personal gain.

The key to Anderson’s protagonists — and Korda is no exception — lies in their nature as romantic fantasists: clinging to control, delusion, and grandiosity, trying to find their place in a world that accommodates their whimsical, precocious tendencies less and less as they inch toward mortality.

There is a poignant moment later in the film when Liesl, holding her rosary, explains, “When I pray, nobody responds. Then I do whatever I think God would have suggested. Usually it’s obvious.”

There are many simple yet striking scenes — like a bird’s-eye view of Korda sulking in a hospital bathtub as he recovers from a plane crash. A nurse pours him a glass of Montrachet wine, then sets the bottle down to chill in a bidet repurposed as an ice bucket.

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Anderson is, as ever, a master of musical score. The film leans heavily on Stravinsky, music that pulsates with tension and spiritual dissonance. Passages from ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and Apollon musagète deepen the film’s mood and heighten the contrast between its stylized violence — hand grenades, explosions, assassinations — and the calm detachment of its whimsical characters, who drift through it all without blinking.

Like most of Wes Anderson’s films, The Phoenician Scheme is not for everyone. His work is painted with such distinct and uncompromising brushstrokes that it has become its own genre. There’s something refreshing about a filmmaker so disinterested in mass appeal — and a studio willing to support that disinterest — that he’s free to indulge his whims entirely. At times, this can come at the expense of narrative cohesion. But not here. The Phoenician Scheme is Anderson’s most focused film in years.

Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds an MBA from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.