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If we tell you this is the story of an art-heist,
you might start expecting ‘Oceans Twelve’ or
something, but if we tell you the title is definitely ironic you will
be closer to understanding the gist.
Josh O’Connor, wonderfully scruffy here, plays
James, an art-school dropout who has this great idea to steal some
paintings from a local museum in Massachusetts. What could be easier?
Well…
If he’d thought about how to do it, if he had reliable fellow-thieves,
if he’d thought about how he would sell them… excuse the pun, but you
get the picture?
Director Kelly Reichardt is more interested in the people, more
interested in reality than action. ‘The very fact of its ostentatiously
unadorned reality makes the extraordinary events real and startling,
shot, as always with Reichardt, with an earth-tones colour palette in a
cold, clear daylight in her unflavoured, unaccented style. We are
talking about robbery with guns pointed at innocent people and security
guards roughed up, with no dramatic music on the soundtrack (quite as
it would be in real life). Reichardt has unerringly located the
unglamour in the heist’ - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.
In parts this is almost a comedy - certainly very funny at times - but
what the director brings us is a portrait of an everyday-man who thinks
he can break out of his dull life, without thinking it through. ‘‘The
Mastermind’ may be a heist movie about a novice thief with a dumb
plan. But Reichardt pulls it off like clockwork: This film is
stupendously smart’ - Ben Kenigsberg, RogerEbert.com.
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