A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Mastermind” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 2*, 12A).
Critic Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian described Kelly Reichardt’s new film, “The Mastermind”, thus: “Reichardt’s quietist, observational style is unexpectedly successful at creating a super-naturalistic depiction of an art gallery robbery”, giving it 4 stars. And I will agree that there is something simplistic and naturalistic about the fairly inept art theft depicted in this film. But after that, the pace of the film is GLACIALLY slow and frankly bored me to tears. It’s a heist movie guys! It’s supposed to be entertaining!
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
James Blaine Mooney (Josh O’Connor) is a small-time crook who steps up his game with an art theft at a local museum. But his plot unravels on him when one of his accomplices is caught robbing a bank and squeals.
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Infrequent strong language, moderate violence, drug references”. Another curious discrepancy in rating… an R in the US but only a 12 in the UK??!)
Talent:
Starring: Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffmann, Bill Camp, Hope Davis, Javion Allen.
Directed by: Kelly Reichardt.
Written by: Kelly Reichardt.
Running Time: 1h 50m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Josh O’Connor is very good again.
- The art theft is suitably engaging in its ineptness.
Negatives:
- A slow film and at times, it moves like treacle.
- I really didn’t care about any of the characters.
- The ending!
Full Review of “The Mastermind”:
I really like heist movies.
Give me either version of “The Thomas Crown Affair” and I’ll be as happy as Larry. “The Bank Job”: count me in. Even comedy variants like “The Duke” and “King of Thieves“: sure, fire ’em at me. But I really just didn’t get on with this Kelly Reichardt film. It has a heist; it had a cool jazz soundtrack; but it was no Thomas Crown Affair.
The opening of the film, set in the fictitious Framingham Museum of Art, was quirky enough. James (Josh O’Connor) is seen stealing a small little figurine while his little kid prattles on about a riddle. Although I spent a lot of time trying to work out what the relationship was between James and Terri (Alana Haim): brother and sister? husband and wife? I found it as clear as mud.
But then cabinet-maker James gets a lot more ambitious, aiming for three ‘Arthur Dove’ paintings on display in the museum. The heist itself is suitably inept with the ‘mastermind’ James not really considering how they were going to get past the guard on the door: in the end, we never see what sort of assault the headstrong Ronnie Gibson (Javion Allen) makes on the guard, but escape they do.
Treacle time.
Post-heist there are moments of such excruciatingly slow action that I almost gave up the will to live. In one scene, James is hiding the paintings in a hay-loft. He must take a good 7 or 8 minutes doing that. The one moment of ‘excitement’ is when he accidently knocks the ladder down. I was thinking “Ooh, how is he going to get down? Will he break a leg if he jumps? Will someone find him up there with the stolen paintings?” But no. It’s all a big fat damp squib.
The film goes on like this, spending 5 minutes on some mindlessly slow scene that could have been conveyed in 2 minutes. The only good thing about this was that this was the day I was really suffering from LFF burn-out, and I was able to shut my eyes for a couple of minutes and then open them again and I really hadn’t missed anything at all!
I saw the film with Audio Description subtitles (the LFF press screenings are often want to have these) and at times the AD subtitle said “intriguing mid-tempo jazz music plays”. Well, I wasn’t bloody well intrigued by any of it. I didn’t really care what happened to James, I was so bored of the whole thing.
The ending.
No spoilers, but the film just ends. The end title comes up and I went “WHAT?”.
Josh O’Connor.
O’Connor is again very good in the role. That’s really the nicest thing I can think of to say about the film.
Summary Thoughts:
I found this film to be hugely tiresome. Many in the screening seemed to love it. I suspect I will be on the side of the righteous when it comes to the box office appreciation for this. At the time of writing, it has an IMDB score of 6.2 from 1,000 votes. I suspect that will fall when it comes on general release, but we will see.
It is due for a UK release on 24th October 2025.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWokrf6yeEU.
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