A good movie about a bad thief.
The centerpiece of “The Mastermind” has a character telling the main thief: “I don’t think you thought things through enough.” According to what Kelly Reichardt’s latest film examines, this thief, whose name is James Blaine Mooney (Josh O’Connor), wouldn’t be hired by Danny Ocean. In fact, there isn’t an igneous plot twist that Steven Soderbergh specializes. But then again, Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler made worse decisions when they opened up an illegal casino in their friend’s basement and left so many dead giveaways to their crimes in “The House.”
“The Mastermind” is more in the low key genre which might detract the attention of movie-goers who love when the crime genre has chases and shoot-outs, and so forth. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to see it through Reichardt’s eyes, but I did, and I like the way she tries to give it a 70s appeal, especially its choice of ending. No spoilers alerts from me today.
I would say that this is the second week in a row in which I saw a movie about a thief making bad decisions, and I recall last week’s “Roofman” with Channing Tatum playing Jeffrey Manchester who hid inside a Toys “R” Us. Now with “The Mastermind,” I’m told the story is inspired by the 1972 robbery of the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. I’ve never heard of any of these two real life thieving stories before I saw these two movies.
This amateur thief is an art school drop-out and would-be architect, who is also the son of the local judge (Bill Camp), and relies on money from his mother (Hope Davis) to provide for his family, which consists of his wife (Alana Haim) and two sons (Sterling and Jasper Thompson). This family seems to be gloomy, based on how they interact with each other at dinner, and how the judge is mostly the one talking.
The crime genre begins when Mooney asks his friends Guy (Eli Gleb) and Larry (Cole Doman), and a teenager named Ronnie (Javion Allen) to help him pull of an art museum heist. It should be easy since the security guards sleep on the job, but it all goes south when guns are involved, it’s broad daylight, and when the police question Mooney. And therefore, the rest of the movie has him going on the run. If someone did get shot and killed in the process, this guy obviously can’t turn to the Wolf for help.
There’s also a reunion between Mooney and his substitute teacher friend (John Magaro) and you better believe there’s a scene when his wife Maude (Gaby Hoffman) knows what this runaway is up to and asks him to leave and never come back.
“The Mastermind” may be dry in areas, but it still looks at an art heist through a low key perspective, and shows us how this man may be ambitious, but he doesn’t really know what he’s getting himself into. It’s clear he’s never seen a heist movie before, so he doesn’t know how the game should work, and O’Connor does a good job conveying that notion. I was thinking back to Woody Allen’s crime comedy “Small Time Crooks,” which had him plotting a bank heist that doesn’t work out, and gets overshadowed by a small cookie business cover-up. I know these movies take place in different time periods, but none of these guys know how heists are supposed to work, and yet, it’s fun along the way.
The score has a jazzy vibe with trumpets playing and composer Rob Mazurek from Chicago Underground making his feature debut. It should merge with the quickness of the robbery and the aftermath of the main protagonist finding a way out of trouble. It’s an independent film distributed by Mubi, so it doesn’t want to go all flashy and noisy like most commercial heist films do.
This is also Reichardt’s first film since “Showing Up,” and it’s clear she views characters in the atmosphere over traditional plotting. And we appreciate how she plays her movies by her own rules.
In Select Theaters This Friday