Pop Break is celebrating its 16 year anniversary by raising money for St. Jude!
If you have a few dollars, please consider giving to help children and their families out! Click here to donate.
Director Kelly Reichardt’s range is incredibly vast stretching from Oregon-set dramas to an odd comedy set within an abstract art camp. With her latest film, Reichardt sews her comedic and artistic vision into a small-scale heist flick where the narrative mostly stays afloat through Josh O’Connor’s standout performance.
The Mastermind, features one of Reichardt’s most tantalizing premises to date, as it follows amateur art thief JB Mooney (O’Connor), whose lofty ambitions get him into a tight spot. Reichardt expertly establishes subtle thrills that draw you into the quiet, composed, and slightly cool nature of JB’s thievery. His calm while snatching a small statue from a display case leaves you transfixed by his brazenness. As he makes a simple escape towards the door, he improvs what feels like a trademark taunt to the nearby guard that symbolizes his unsuspecting presence — leaving a devious smile across your face.
Composer Rob Mazurek’s jazzy score evokes the feel of a classic heist flick, adding nostalgic flavor to JB’s slyness. Reichardt crafts an effective opening that not only sets the tone and introduces its lead character in style, but makes you almost believe that JB will live up to the grand moniker presented in the title.
However, it’s not long until the fantastical highs of JB’s thieving skills fade, and a harsh, yet sometimes hilarious reality sets in. Despite there clearly being masterclass potential within JB, you quickly realize that he’s no Danny Ocean. His planning is lazily vague and the cohorts he’s assembled are as in-over-their-heads as he is. He can’t separate himself from his family life, so they often cross at inconvenient times. JB might’ve looked smooth at first, but his operation is a hot mess waiting to crumble — and Reichardt has no problem turning his fumbles into hilarious beats. Whether it’s JB’s kids tarnishing his professionalism or his less than reliable goons making a mess of his plans, Reichardt is unafraid to show how clueless her central thief is. The heist, itself, is a genuine riot too – filled with plenty of well-edited jokes and haphazard execution that’ll leave audiences in stitches.
It’s what makes The Mastermind quite the unexpected crowd-pleaser (at least for the first half) and O’Connor’s steady, cunning performance keeps viewers captivated. Although he’s pretty stone-faced, O’Connor emits a range of emotions boiling within JB. The sheer glee JB feels after achieving his dreams for a few fleeting moments pours out through his relieved glances. The panic and frustrations of things going awry are palpable and fuel the subtle thrills that weave throughout the heist and its consequences. Even when JB is at his most amateurish, O’Connor plays it off like he’s about to pull off something special. It’s a great performance that shows off his physical acting and his strengths help carry a fairly subdued second half that might lose some viewers.
The first half of The Mastermind focuses on JB constructing and enacting this big art heist, which is a lot of fun and full of hilarious rug-pulls that match the juicy thrills. The second half, though, is more about the aftermath that proves JB is out of his league. While there are some good story elements, the film’s pacing slows down immensely and the more concrete storytelling drifts into abstract wandering. It makes sense considering what happens with JB and Reichardt’s overall approach. However, the film loses its big pull and downshifts in such a way that might make people feel let down.
Frankly, none of the other characters outside of JB are well-utilized either, especially his wife, Terri (Alana Haim). In a similar vein to Anna Paquin’s performance in The Irishman, Haim is mostly silent and subdued to reflect the silent anger Terri has towards JB. It’s effective and there’s a final phone call between them that rocks JB’s confidence. However, it does feel like Terri is under-utilized and those looking for another jaw-dropper performance from Haim after Licorice Pizza will have to keep waiting for a meatier role.
Even with the film cranking things down in its latter half, there are persistent themes of loneliness and looming fears of the Vietnam draft that give the film a lasting mark. The Mastermind is as much of a period piece of Nixon-era America as it is a shifty heist film, and JB is the centerpiece of the loneliness of the time. With news on the war always hovering over him, there’s this desire for escapism that’s overtaken everything within him. Even when he’s with his family, his mind is somewhere else and Reichardt and O’Connor do a fantastic job creating this eerie sense of isolation that evokes the era well.
The Mastermind sees Reichardt and O’Connor pull off a heist flick that balances genuine hilarity, suspenseful beats, and dreams being crushed by reality. It may lose some people as it drifts out of the fun of its central robbery, but it leaves lasting thoughts that make it a hidden gem of Reichardt’s work, and a damn fun time that’s hard to forget.
