The Mastermind, 2025.
Written and Directed by Kelly Reichardt.
Starring Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, John Magaro, Hope Davis, Bill Camp, Gaby Hoffmann, Amanda Plummer, Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, Javion Allen, Matthew Maher, Rhenzy Feliz, Juan Carlos Hernández, Jean Zarzour, D.J. Stroud, Ryan Homchick, Sterling Thompson, Jasper Thompson, Margot Anderson-Song, Katie Hubbard, Barry Mulholland, Alexis Nicole Neuenschwander, and Reighan Bean.
SYNOPSIS:
In a sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels.
With the Vietnam War protests spreading throughout the streets and all over the radio, family man JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor) has withdrawn from their presence a bit, chasing the prospect of becoming a competent career criminal who can provide for his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and two young boys (played by Sterling and Jasper Thompson) in writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s amusingly subversive take on criminality gone wrong, The Mastermind.
Considering the prologue, where JB slyly lifts a toy soldier from the museum and manages to walk out the front door with it without arousing any suspicions, there is reason to believe he could elevate his game. However, he is also reckless to a fault, unwilling to do proper background checks on the crew he has assembled to ensure they can be trusted. Hell, he forgets his boys have the school day off at the time of his planned big heist, which involves a group of paintings from that same museum.
Unsurprisingly, the ensuing heist, while initially successful, is not without its disastrous moments that lead to the police eventually arriving at the Mooney family door. And while that heist sequence is unquestionably one of the more fun sequences Kelly Reichart has constructed throughout her career (the up-tempo, lively score from Rob Mazurek also does wonders giving her film an energetic pulse compared to her more typical, dry and glacially slow moments of observation), that’s also not with this movie is about, and it’s for the better.
Cut off from his family and on the lam, JB hopes to see them again one day, often calling home when he can. Naturally, Terri doesn’t want to see him anymore and certainly doesn’t want him talking to the boys. It’s not just that JB is incompetent; he’s also irresponsible, with his priorities out of whack. This is a guy who assured his crew that everything would work out, seemingly because he thinks too highly of himself and can’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that, for one, he is no mastermind, and that things are not going to be fine. It allows Josh O’Connor to deliver a quietly despondent performance, but also one that’s somewhat subtly narcissistic. The darkly funny ending drives that point home, connecting the political background context into the narrative, making for a thematically satisfying conclusion.
For as compulsively watchable as it is following JB around, reconnecting with lost friends, and desperately searching for a way out of his manhunt predicament, The Mastermind is also yet another Kelly Reichardt film. It sits with scenes of mundane tasks for an excessively lengthy time, adding nothing of note to characterization. It’s 110 minutes and could have been about 90 without losing anything of value. Fortunately, Josh O’Connor’s performance is enough to hold that together. Far from being a masterwork, it serves as a slight piece of comedy of errors entertainment, centering on a self-absorbed failure of a criminal.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
