"Ever since The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston's 1950 film about a jewel robbery, audiences and filmmakers have loved heist movies. You get the precise laying out of the plan, the robbery itself, the roaring getaway and the moment that things go wrong there's always a snafu. A good heist movie offers the exacting pleasures of both the crime and the plot unfolding like clockwork."
"The clock comes unsprung in The Mastermind, the latest film from Kelly Reichardt, whose devoutly un-Hollywood movies are as admired by critics as they are underseen by the public. Working with a deliberate approach all her own, she here takes the classic heist story, gives it a few tugs and shrugs, and winds up with a funny, sad movie that gets stronger and more original as it goes along."
"Quiet and hard to read behind his scruffy beard, J.B. is an unemployed cabinet maker who exudes an air of unearned superiority. He's distant with his wife, played by Alana Haim, wheedles money from his indulgent mother (that's the great Hope Davis) and feels disdain for his philistine father (played by Bill Camp), a judge who hectors his son for not getting ahead."
Set in 1970s Massachusetts and inspired by a historical art theft, The Mastermind follows James Blaine "J.B." Mooney, an unemployed cabinet maker who plots a museum robbery to steal four Arthur Dove paintings. J.B. is aloof with his wife, dependent on his indulgent mother and contemptuous of his judge father. He recruits inept acquaintances for a low-tech, era-appropriate plan that initially succeeds. Possessing the paintings drags him into encounters with police, gangsters and life on the run. The film uses a deliberate, un-Hollywood style to make the heist a funny, sad character study that grows more original over time.
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