In the last half-decade Stanley Tucci has been a source of near-inexhaustible on- screen delight, whether making friends with nonnas in his delightful cooking shows or smartly judged supporting turns in Conclave and The Devil Wears Prada 2. He is an actor well placed for a star vehicle of his own, and this one, Masterplan, sounds good on paper: an art heist fronted by the actor at his most debonair, flanked by a grandson of a French New Wave legend (Victor Belmondo, related to Breathless star Jean-Paul) and a buzzy breakout of The White Lotus (Simona Tabasco, winning in season two of Mike White’s comedy).
There’s a good bit of pulpy fun to have here, with double, triple and quadruple crossing, silly spy gadgetry which has been updated to include retina scan cloning and something called “VR intrusion”. As British criminal mastermind Roger, Tucci is game to send up aristo archetypes, even if his character often veers into parody. “I’m English,” his character says at one point. “‘Not bad’ is what I say when I orgasm.”
