The Mastermind may be billed as a heist movie, but that categorization does the movie a disservice. If anything, director Kelly Reichardt's latest is an anti-heist movie, with the heist being almost entirely beside the point: instead, she invites us into a historical moment not so dissimilar from our own to wonder just what the purpose of art is in times of upheaval. A rush of tension in the first 30 minutes or so quickly dissipates, and we're left to chew on the anticlimactic aftermath for the rest of the runtime. You'll either find it frustrating or brilliant.
Josh O'Connor, who's pulling double duty on the film festival circuit at the moment for The Mastermind and new Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man, stars as James "JB" Mooney, a man who's swapped a fledgling career in academia for a life as America's most useless househusband. Unlike his art thief character Arthur in last year's La Chimera, JB isn't motivated by love or beauty, though – it's ego and greed, and instead of tragedy we get subtly deadpan comedy in another standout turn from O'Connor.
