Keswick Film Club - The Mastermind

Synopsis

If I tell you this is the story of an art-heist, you might start expecting 'Oceans Twelve' or something, but if I 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.