“Mastermind” (2025), by Kelly Reichardt – Reviews

The recent theft of historical jewels from the Louvre could well have been a covert promotional campaign for the new film by Kelly Reichardt which precisely revolves around the robbery of an equally rudimentary and ambitious art museum. This is not a lavish genre film in the style of The great scam (2001) despite the hint of its title and its brand new leading actor, Josh O’Connor. Nor is it a film reserved for museum connoisseurs despite the fame of its director and screenwriter as a modern exponent of slow cinema. Mastermind (The Mastermind2025) actually lies at a healthy midpoint between the two, offering a dynamic and comic spirit typical of the heist genre as well as excessive contemplation and social criticism distinctive of the American style.

O’Connor here plays James Mooney, an unemployed father from a small Massachusetts town who seems indifferent to the social upheaval generated by the Vietnam War and the family urgency caused by its economic inactivity. This indifference is due in part to his obsession with stealing some paintings by abstract artist Arthur Dove from a local museum, an idea that he soon turns into a plan with the help of three criminals and behind his family’s back. But his humorous lack of professionalism and authority betrays him when carrying out the robbery, leaving him exposed and having to resort to a clumsily improvised clandestinity to evade justice.

The first thing that catches our attention in the film is its careful setting of American society in 1970. The autumnal wardrobe of warm tones, the enormously long cars, the abstract art and modern architecture of the museum, and the posters of Protestants against the Vietnam War are some elements that can convince us that we are watching a film from yesteryear, very much in the style of Those who stay (2023). The filming style also feels atypical for a contemporary production, especially with its 360-degree pans. But what ends up defining the character of the film is its spectacular jazz soundtrack composed by Rob Mazurek that is reminiscent of thrillers classics of professional robbers and that generates an ironic contrast in relation to the calamitous feat of the protagonist.

His sense of humor in that sense is not the most hilarious. Unlike an Alexander Payne who frequently generates comedy situations in Those who stay, Reichardt He adopts a posture more similar to that of a nature documentary filmmaker who patiently awaits the succession of absurd stumbles of a predator to obtain its prey. Indeed, the director rewards our patience with a naive Josh O’Connor who becomes entangled in his own lies and miscalculations, an image that will be pleasantly familiar to those who have seen The chimera (2023) by Alice Rohrwacher in which the Briton plays another melancholic art thief. But while Rohrwacher accompanies his protagonist with accomplices and extravagant situations, Reichhart progressively isolates him after the robbery sequence to give rise to a more introspective film.

James Mooney’s story may be too simple for a film of almost two hours, and to some extent it can be criticized for the length of a predictable third act. But as in the case of its predecessor, First Cow (2019), whose end is hinted at in its first sequence, Mastermind prioritizes the slow development of the plot and its allegory about a key historical and social period in the United States. James Mooney is a father mature enough to save himself from the Vietnam War draft, but also childish enough to sabotage the stability of his own family. He then stands as a personification of the crisis of male authority, of institutional marriage and of the American government with Nixon during the 70s. Hence, the film takes on special relevance in an American present that is just as or even more dysfunctional.

In a scene from the movie James claims that he needs all the time in the world to get his life back to normal. Reichardt He could very well use this moment to justify the length of his film and imply that, even with all the time in the world, there are men who can’t or won’t fix their lives. In that sense, beyond an electrifying soundtrack and a superb performance by O’Connor, Mastermind seems to offer a raw essay on poor, pathetic, narcissistic parenting that is more shocking than an Arthur Dove abstract painting. The Louvre thieves would like their lives to one day be adapted to film and turn out to be more memorable than their precious loot.