The Mastermind

The abject non-hero of Kelly Reichardt’s engrossingly downbeat heist movie, set in 1970s Massachusetts, is weak, vain and utterly clueless. By the end, he’s a weirdly Updikean figure, though without the self-awareness: going on the run with no money and without a change of clothes, to escape from the grotesque mess he has made for himself and his family.

James, played with hangdog near-charm by Josh O’Connor; is an art school dropout and would-be architectural designer… Having established the lax security measures at a local art gallery, he plans to pay two tough guys and a getaway driver to steal four paintings by American artist Arthur Dove and hide them at a nearby farmhouse.

“…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… Reichardt has unerringly located the unglamour in the heist.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“The fallout from the mediocre robbery of a minor-league museum leads to a steadily deepening character study that ruminates on what’s really at stake, and who exactly we’re rooting for.” — Nicolas Rapold, Sight and Sound