The 1970s was a decade of great change, and it is in this backdrop that Mooney (Josh O’Connor) decides to pull of an art heist. Two of his thugs rob paintings from a museum, but things get hairy when a gun is pulled and a child recognises one of the criminals. Suddenly a simple task becomes a carousel of police, passports and panic.
The Mastermind opens with a scene that could easily have come from The Thomas Crown Affair (John McTiernan, 1999) as well as Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001), but O’Connor doesn’t have the suave debonair stylings of a Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney.Director Kelly Reichardt shows Mooney in a museum snaffling art pieces and putting it in his wife’s handbag. He’s fairly stiff, as is his comedic timing, and sadly he is little better in the second, more tense ridden half. All in all, O’Connor is miscast in the role of wannabe crook.
It also doesn’t help that the plot never knows which direction to take. There is a focus on the family, a husband and wife with two bratty kids, but that never goes anywhere interesting. Mooney is the son of a judge, but that’s a plot thread that lasts a line or two and is never mentioned in the film again. Gaby Hoffman’s Maude offers an interesting diversion as the one character who can see through the lead, but she boasts ten minutes of screentime max, and then it is a return to plodding nonsense.
There’s nothing in the heist scene that hasn’t been directed with greater intrigue or invention in past films. Barring a suprisingly funny gag of the two men struggling to open a car, everything in this set is utter boring And O’Connor is never charismatic enough to draw viewers in to the lunacy occurring all around him.
At one point Mooney is accosted by a more professional gangster who tells him “You didn’t think this thing through.” The scene is a shopping list of hackneyed lines: “think of the crew”, “people talk”, “remember for next time.” Little in this moment, let alone the entire film, comes across as especially new.
Alana Haim plays the wife, but gets very little to do other than frown disapprovingly. Mooney’s mother nags at the lead to repay the outstanding loans he owes her, coming off as clawing in the process. Barring Maude, there isn’t a single likeable woman role in the film, as they spend their time tut tutting and growling.
The soundtrack is littered with frenetic drums going off, a clitter-clatter of cymbals, back pedals and hi-hats. The percussion adds tension to the proceedings where the actors and story fails to stand up. In keeping with the decade, the score uses jazz instrumentation, never losing the essence of the period. No samplers, no fuzz pedals, just live and hurried musicianship. More than that, the set design recognises the era, replete with signs asking the United States to withdraw from Vietnam in the name of peace.
In terms of aesthete and musical syncopation, The Mastermind has merit, but the rest of the flick feels passé, even as a throwback to a half a century ago. It has a weak lead, a flabby story, and an angle it’s doubtful the creative team fully comprehend. Rob Mazurek is the real mastermind, infusing a selection of clever musical hooks that stand up with or without visuals to accompany them. But there is no denying the fact that without the instrumental sections, the movie would be much tougher to sit through on one go.
The Mastermind premiered in the Official Competition of the 78th Festival de Cannes, when this piece was originally written. Also showing at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, and at the BFI London Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, October 24th. On Mubi in December.
