{"id":13239,"date":"2025-10-18T16:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13239"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:56:38","slug":"the-mastermind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/10\/18\/the-mastermind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mastermind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Mastermind<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 MUBI\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kelly Reichardt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kelly Reichardt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Mazurek\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christopher Blauvelt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 17, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Josh O\u2019Connor, Alana Haim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffman, Bill Camp, Sterling Thompson, Jasper Thompson, Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, Javion Allen, Matthew Maher.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Who\u2019s the mastermind who greenlighted this turkey? I have many questions about the art heist drama The Mastermind<\/strong>, but that\u2019s number one on the list. I want to know who I should blame for wasting two hours of my life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Actually, I know who\u2019s partly to blame for this dud. It\u2019s writer-director Kelly Reichardt whose resume includes female-driven projects like Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek\u2019s Cutoff (2010) and Certain Women (2016). I don\u2019t know what drew her to The Mastermind<\/strong>, but she should have resisted. It doesn\u2019t take a genius to see she\u2019s out of her depth with this dull as dishwater heist flick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It should be noted that The Mastermind<\/strong> is only loosely based on the real-life robbery of the Worcester Museum in 1972. By that, I mean the names and other details have been changed. For example, the real-life crooks stole paintings by Gauguin, Picasso and Rembrandt. In the movie, they steal four paintings by Arthur Dove. In real life, a security guard was shot during the incident. In reel life, there\u2019s just a scuffle. The list goes on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The \u201cmastermind\u201d of the heist is one James Blaine Mooney (O\u2019Connor, Challengers), a former art student and unemployed family man who perfectly epitomizes the term \u201closer\u201d. The guy can\u2019t do anything right. He\u2019s especially bad at crime, but he\u2019s too dim to realize it. He thinks he has it all planned out, but pretty much everything that can go wrong does go wrong starting with child care. James didn\u2019t know his two sons were off from school that day so he\u2019s stuck watching them. He has to figure out something to do with them while he\u2019s \u201cworking\u201d. Next, his driver (Doman) backs out at the last minute forcing James to take over that job. It\u2019s all downhill from there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Somehow James and his two dimwitted accomplices get away with the paintings, but it isn\u2019t long before the cops show up at his house with questions. They know he did it. One of his accomplices (Allen) told them everything after he got busted for robbing a bank just days after the theft. The other one (Gelb) leads James into a trap involving some hoods who relieve him of the stolen goods. Realizing how screwed he is, James goes on the run where his streak of bad luck continues.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What is they say about life imitating art? That\u2019s exactly what happens with The Mastermind<\/strong>. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. For one thing, it\u2019s a colossal bore. It moves slower than a snail on opiates. It\u2019s a heist thriller with no thrills. It has the makings of a dark comedy, but it\u2019s not the least bit funny. I think Reichardt might be trying to make some statement about America losing its way, but it doesn\u2019t come through. The whole exercise is pointless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Character development isn\u2019t even an issue in The Mastermind<\/strong>. There is none. I didn\u2019t get much of a read on anybody, especially James\u2019 wife Terri (Haim, Licorice Pizza). What\u2019s her deal? She\u2019s unhappy, but is it only because of the family\u2019s circumstances? I get the impression she has mental issues, but the movie never bothers to explain or elaborate. And what about their two young sons? The one without glasses could very well be on the autism spectrum, but it\u2019s never explicitly stated. Then there\u2019s James\u2019 father (Camp, Sound of Freedom), a respected judge. You would think his reaction to his son\u2019s actions would play some important part, but he disappears about midway through and is never seen or heard from again. I haven\u2019t seen this many one-dimensional characters since I accidentally tuned into an episode of The Bachelor.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The script is a half-assed jumble with no rhyme or reasons. Reichardt fails to explain so many things. Like who is Maude (Hoffman, Now and Then) to James? I think she\u2019s his sister, but I can\u2019t be sure. Also, who exactly are the hoods who force James to hand over the paintings? Do they plan to sell the stolen art themselves? And how do they get recovered? Did these guys hand them in to collect the reward? I don\u2019t know the answers to any of these questions. I don\u2019t even know why I bothered to stay through the whole movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only good thing about The Mastermind<\/strong> is the cinematography. It has the look and feel of a 70s movie which is fitting seeing that it\u2019s set in the early 70s. The wintry setting gives it a palpable sense of despair and hopelessness. That\u2019s all well and good, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that The Mastermind<\/strong> is a horrible movie. Not only that, it\u2019s an incompetent one. I literally could not wait for it to finally be over, but even that got botched with a frustrating ending in which nothing gets resolved. This is one of those movies I urge you to skip. It\u2019s just not worth the effort.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mastermind (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 MUBI\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kelly Reichardt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kelly Reichardt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Rob Mazurek\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Christopher Blauvelt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 17, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Josh O\u2019Connor, Alana Haim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffman, Bill Camp, Sterling Thompson, Jasper Thompson, Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, Javion Allen, Matthew Maher. Rating: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Mastermind-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13266,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13239\/revisions\/13266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}