Set against the turbulent backdrop of 1970 Massachusetts, The Mastermind follows James Blaine “J.B.” Mooney (Josh O’Connor), an unemployed carpenter and family man who decides he’s cut out for a life of high-stakes crime. Starting small by pocketing minor items from a local museum out of sheer boredom, J.B. soon sets his sights higher, plotting to swipe a quartet of valuable Arthur Dove modern paintings. Armed with a half-baked scheme, a crew of totally inept accomplices and financial backing squeezed out of his own family under false pretenses, J.B. stumbles headfirst into an art heist. When things naturally go sideways, the film shifts from a low-key caper into a melancholic, fascinating look at a man watching the wreckage of his own suburban life catch up to him.
Kelly Reichardt writes, directs and edits, crafting another episode in minimalism and regional American texture following acclaimed works like First Cow and Meek’s Cutoff. The narrative was loosely based on the real-life historical peculiarities of early 1970s American property crimes, drawing specific atmospheric details from the infamous 1972 art museum robbery in Worcester, Massachusetts.
While the story unfolds in suburban Massachusetts, the production cleverly utilized pockets of Cincinnati, Ohio, to capture the authentic, sun-faded strip malls, drive-ins and period architecture of the Nixon era. Eschewing the hyperkinetic, puzzle-box mechanics of traditional Hollywood blockbusters, Reichardt deliberately styled the picture as an anti-heist film, favoring free-jazz rhythms, quiet character studies and the sobering reality of what happens when amateur criminals — even those rebelling against something because otherwise they have nothing — have to face the music.
You can get this from Deep Discount.
