Kelly Reichardt has built her entire filmmaking identity around dismantling genre conventions. She’s taken apart the western, the buddy road movie, thrillers and now, she turns her attention to heist films. But instead of channeling the slick precision of Ocean’s Eleven or the explosive chaos of Heat, Reichardt strips the genre down to something quieter and more reflective. The Mastermind isn’t about the thrill of the score but is a more restrained and meditative approach to the genre as she delivers an anti-heist film.
In 1970s suburban Massachusetts, we meet the Mooney Family. On the surface they appear like any other family in suburban America. However, the family’s patriarch, James (Josh O’Connor), has been unemployed for a while as he is a dropped out art student and wannabe architectural designer, leaving the sole breadwinner to be Terri (Alana Haim), his wife, and his father Judge William (Bill Camp) to support the family. Hidden in shame and embarrassment, he hatches a plan to hire two tough-guy thieves and a getaway driver to steal four paintings from American artist Arthur Dove at the local art museum in broad daylight after noticing the museum’s lack of security. However, once the art is stolen and the police are looking for the thieves, James must ask himself, how on earth is he going to fence them.
Quietly charming and gleefully self-aware, The Mastermind strips away the gloss and grandeur of the heist genre to reveal something far more grounded. From the opening shot, the film establishes itself in the warm-earthy hues of New England’s autumn and the sounds of birds chirping and jazz fill the air. There’s a gentle nostalgia to it, a lived-in naturalism that makes it feel almost like a slice of life. So when the robbery does arrive, it doesn’t explode onto the screen. Its arrival is messy, clumsy, and human. There is no score to cue excitement, no sleek choreography, just a clumsy, halfbaked robbery that somehow ends with no casualties despite one of them waving a gun around and beating up a security guard. It’s unglamorous in a pathetically funny kind of way.
But the film’s real, self-aware sense of pathetic charm doesn’t fully bloom until the second half, when James is on the run after one of his so-called tough guys rats him out. He’s broke, hungry, and wearing the same clothes he pulled the job in as he bounces from one friend’s couch to the next, begging for enough cash to get out of dodge. Josh O’Connor is pitch-perfect in the role. James is a man so deluded by ego and his half-baked intellect that he never once considered what came after the heist, beyond stashing the stolen art in a pig barn. He’s a complete loser, through and through, but O’Connor gives him such an unforced, human warmth that you can’t help but feel for him, even as you’re shaking your head at the absurdity of it all.
Overall, The Mastermind is a dryly funny, naturalistic deconstruction of the heist genre that will either click with you or not. Personally, I was quietly taken by Reichardt’s minimalist yet deeply immersive direction. It’s definitely on the more arthouse side, and the ending will leave plenty of viewers scratching their heads, but that’s part of its charm. It’s an odd, singular little film, and I found myself completely taken with it.
My Rating: B
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