I don’t exactly think high-action thriller when I hear the name Kelly Reichardt, and that’s fine. The director is known for her slow films full of silent actors and quiet ambiance. However, when I heard that Reichardt decided to make a heist movie, and the film kicks off with some jazzy notes that depict Josh O’Connor casing his local art museum, I thought, “OK, change of pace!” Boy, was I wrong. In an uneven and shaky presentation, The Mastermind vascillates between wanting to lean into the thrills of a heist and falling back on Reichardt’s tried-and-true formula. The result is a confusing mix of tones with a fairly basic concept that rarely dips below the surface.
‘The Mastermind’ Has Plenty of Potential, but Kelly Reichardt Isn’t the Right Director

Image via Cannes

The concept behind The Mastermind is an interesting one. J.B. Mooney (O’Connor) is a struggling carpenter and an art school dropout. When we first meet him, he’s an unassuming man, but we quickly realize that something else lies beneath the surface of his calm demeanor. In the opening scene of The Mastermind, J.B. cases his local art museum, checking for the details, and quietly steals a little figurine as a keepsake before gathering two friends to plan the heist. The goal? Steal four abstract paintings by Arthur Dove.
And for the first 40 minutes of The Mastermind, we see just that. The heist, like all movie heists, doesn’t exactly go off without a hitch, but J.B. still ends up with the paintings in hand. At this point, the film’s pacing is quite consistent. Jumping from J.B. scheming alone, to planning with his cohorts, to executing the plan, to hiding the paintings, it’s a steady tempo that’s all done to the beat of a jazzy dissonant soundtrack. But then, after J.B. gets his hands on the paintings, the tone shifts and everything screeches to a halt.
Once he’s been found out and goes on the run, J.B.’s story then turns into a totally different one. He’s separated from his family and his wife (Alana Haim), and must become nomadic in order to keep out of jail. Here, Reichardt’s camera returns to her familiar style. Slow pans that take in the environment while O’Connor quietly works at a table alone. Stretches of silence fill the theater as we bear witness to just how lonely J.B. is. In some respects, it works. We are keenly aware of J.B.’s change in fortune. However, the jumps back to the jazzy tune and another abrupt shift in the final scene make the film feel inconsistent. What might have fit J.B.’s thematic journey now feels very self-indulgent on Reichardt’s part. On paper, this film has a lot of potential, but with Reichardt as the director, writer, and editor, it’s clear that her voice isn’t the right one for the film.
‘The Mastermind’ Fails To Develop Its Characters Beyond J.B. Mooney

Image via Cannes

You might think that with a cast that includes the likes of Alana Haim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, and Bill Camp, you’d have a lot of fantastic moments. However, there’s little development or even information we learn about these other characters. J.B. himself is an enigma, and even when we learn about how he came up with the idea for the heist, we still don’t really know why. On top of that, Haim, particularly, is painfully underutilized. Her character, Terri, exists only as a mother and a wife. She has no personality, no depth, and it makes no sense to cast Haim when a background actor could have easily filled the role.
Davis has some stronger scenes, especially with O’Connor, but those scenes are few and far between. J.B.’s relationships with his parents and his wife are clearly pivotal to his character. They are more than just background noise. It’s important, as is his complicated relationship with his two sons. However, there are barely any hints that Reichardt has considered the depths of these relationships. I was left wondering if this was an attempt to stir conversation with the viewer or simply laziness, because the ideas presented here are not exactly complicated ones. J.B. is a desperate man looking for purpose and trying to make money; his marriage is crumbling, and his parents are pressuring him constantly.

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In the wider world, the war in Vietnam is raging, which the film uses as a backdrop but ineffectively. In fact, it appears almost like a parody, especially when we have hippies flipping people off and running into protests, while jingoist assholes scream at them from the other side of a window. It’s a cheap way of painting a picture, and that’s not even the only time Reichardt does this. In the film, which is largely composed of white actors, the only actor of color is Rhenzy Feliz, who acts as one of J.B.’s thieves and is loose-lipped about his involvement in the heist. Here, the film leans into the stereotype. Feliz’s character is loud and bombastic, he wields a gun, which he turns on a little girl at one point. For an era where race played such a pivotal part in the political movement and also in culture, it feels somewhat backhanded for the only Black character to be thrown under the bus while everyone else clutches their pearls and leans into pacifist motivations.
‘The Mastermind’ Overstays Its Welcome

Imagw Via Cannes Film Festival

Coming in at 110 minutes, The Mastermind quickly overstays its welcome as we follow J.B. in his snail-paced escape. Reichardt doesn’t use the time she has efficiently, nor does she fully lean into the artistic slow tempo that she often does. As a heist film, it is boring. There’s little introspection, especially as we learn that J.B. doesn’t seem to really regret his actions at all, and when we finally do get movement in his character, the film is over.
The second half of The Mastermind can honestly be described as more of a mood than a film. It’s fairly predictable what will happen to J.B., and even with an ironic twist at the end, the finale doesn’t feel earned. Reichardt barely gives enough to fill in the blanks, and the film seems to cross its arms at the end in a self-satisfied way, taunting you to analyze it. Well, having analyzed it, I think Reichardt would be better off sticking to feminist commentary and Westerns. Minimalism doesn’t work in a heist movie, at least not the way that Reichardt approaches it, and that’s a shame.

The Mastermind

Kelly Reichardt fails to make a heist movie, bouncing between an upbeat and fun intro and a somber and agonizingly slow conclusion.

Release Date

May 23, 2025

Runtime

110 Minutes

Director

Kelly Reichardt

Writers

Kelly Reichardt

Josh O’Connor

James Mooney

Pros & Cons

Josh O’Connor does the best he can with what he is given, playing a complicated man who is fairly insular.

The Mastermind doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be and suffers tonally and pacing-wise as a result.
The film does not elaborate or develop any of the characters outside J.B. and keeps most of them as caricatures.