The Mastermind

One can even detect, in this brilliant, captivating Reichardt gem about fortune and fate, a what-if attached to her disaffected male protagonist: Would today’s version of James, just as adrift and arrogant, steal art to assuage his emptiness? Or, thanks to the internet, succeed at something much worse? “The Mastermind” may be an ironic title as heists go. But it also hints at the male-pattern badness still to come.

Kelly Reichardt’s heist movie The Mastermind is crackingly, urgently alive, an assured and magnificent addition to an already storied body of work.

O’Connor balances an outer reticence with an inner confidence throughout, then slyly brings the two qualities together as the film proceeds (notice how he fiddles with his wedding ring while otherwise effortlessly lying to a pair of detectives). J.B. isn’t an antihero, exactly, but something more fitting for a Kelly Reichardt film.

The Mastermind sees Reinhardt working with a bigger budget and a larger scale, but she never loses her languorous, absorbing sensibilities as a filmmaker. She’s never been better.

The dreary details of post-heist calamity are as pertinent as the main event. It is this that attracts Reichardt’s observing eye and makes The Mastermind so quietly gripping.

A crime thriller with no interest in thrills and not much in crime, this is an at times frustrating character study of a guy who can’t get out of his own way.

If only this movie weren’t as slow as a sleepwalkng turtle. The story is constructed like one big, dark joke whose punchline isn’t worth sitting through 110 minutes to hear.

Glacially slow and underwritten, this film is in desperate need of scenes with dialogue that gives us more than a glimpse into who these characters are, what motivates them, and how they relate to one another. (Are clipped "conversations" supposed to be cool?) NB: if you're not a fan of jazz, the score will be irritating and distracting.

O filme dipõe de ums disposição de corpos interessantes, com ângulos abertos que facilitam captar o que há em tela, bem como uma trilha em jazz pra lá de envolvente. Mas a situação em que colocaram o pobre do protagonista, numa Massachusetts caipiresca, fica um pé no irreal e na cartunice e outro querendo soar natural e episódico, rendendo momentos de puro bocejo quando faz a opção de ser um filme, seja de um lado ou de outro, em slow motion. E é bem isso mesmo, quase uma crônica ou um conto, não adentra em detalhes. Agora você que se vire pra conferir peso artístico a isso aqui, como se a intenção do roubo fosse quase metalinguístico.

Though there are moments of humor and (muted) emotion, the film demonstrates that a feature film must be something more than a short in which every scene lasts four times too long. On the plus side, it is a pleasant, unhurried pictorial of cars and clothes of the late 1960s.

A film about an art heist feels s though it should be fast paced and exciting, but this film is the opposite. It feels like a slow, depressing slog, set and styled like a 70s naturalistic thriller, like the french connection or serpico. In its defence there were some interesting characterisations and a few good scenes but ultimately the film didn’t gel for me, mostly because the protagonist became more pathetic as the film went on.

My least favorite Kelly Reichardt film. Loved her films with Michelle Williams but The Mastermind was way too much of a yawn. Love the lead Josh O'Conner but this was my least favorite film he has done. Do not recommend.