Good evening, and welcome to another installment of Kelly Reichardt: American Master. I’m certain in applying that title to her, even though the films of hers that I consider masterpieces (Meek’s Cutoff, First Cow) are outnumbered by the ones that riled me and left me with questions (Old Joy, Certain Women, Showing Up). Falling into the latter camp is The Mastermind, and while I don’t think this attempt to re-invent the art heist movie is quite successful, it is worth a look if you’re by the AMC Parks at Arlington or the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth this weekend.
(You can also get a free ticket if you sign up for the streaming service Mubi, which is distributing the film. Whether the streamer’s Israeli military ties are a dealbreaker is up to you.)
Josh O’Connor portrays Jim “J.B.” Mooney, an art-school dropout and unemployed carpenter in Framingham, Mass., in 1970. His wife (Alana Haim) and their two sons (Sterling and Jasper Thompson) think it’s funny when he steals small items from the town’s art museum, but he has something much bigger planned that they don’t know about. He and three friends (Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, and Javion Allen) are plotting to steal four paintings by Arthur Dove that are all in the same gallery at the museum, which is guarded by one security guard who is always asleep.
I’m not sure how much Reichardt is imitating the aesthetic of 1970s movies and how much the filmmaking styles of the period just coincide with hers. Whatever, Rob Mazurek’s tense drum-and-bass jazz score is something that you might well have heard in movies from the period. The music, along with Reichardt’s nervous long takes, form an appropriate backdrop as J.B.’s plan starts to unravel before the thieves even reach the museum. He drops his boys off at school only to find that the place is empty because of a teacher in-service day, so he has to give them some money and set them loose in downtown Framingham. His getaway driver then bails at the last minute, and when he parks outside the museum, a police cruiser parks next to him because the patrolman has picked that place to have his lunch. He gets his hands on the paintings anyway, and there’s a harrowing sequence when he stashes the art in an abandoned work site, oblivious to the wild boar that is going about its business not 20 feet from him.
That’s not the only thing he’s oblivious to. Reichardt insistently frames the art heist against the backdrop of Vietnam War protests going on in Framingham and elsewhere, reminding us that J.B. could much more easily and honorably create mischief as part of those. Alas, J.B. is the son of his town’s art-hating judge (Bill Camp) and can’t relate to the unwashed hippies. Presented with a chance to flee across the Canadian border and find work, he balks at having to bunk down with draft dodgers and unshaved feminists. Instead he runs west, and the only time he acknowledges the protests is at the end of the film, when he tries to melt into the crowd in Cincinnati, a move that backfires on him. That part of the movie is where it goes off the boil, unfortunately.
Art lovers will want to know: Dove was a real-life artist, but the artwork that the actors are handling are reproductions of his proto-abstract canvases. The Mastermind evokes a time when museum security was nowhere near as good as it is now (though the Louvre heist demonstrates that it’s not impregnable these days, either), and it usefully reminds us that art thieves aren’t glamorous aesthetes from Hollywood movies of old but rather doofuses like J.B. who don’t know what they’re doing. It’s a better caper film than the current Roofman, too, in showing the darker impulses that motivate these criminals. If you are new to Reichardt, her total command of what’s happening on the screen is compelling stuff for a while.
The Mastermind
Starring Josh O’Connor. Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt. Rated R.
