The Mastermind Review

The Mastermind will premiere in theaters and stream on Mubi at a date TBD. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Kelly Reichardt’s heist movie The Mastermind is crackingly, urgently alive, an assured and magnificent addition to an already storied body of work. Set amid the malaise and unrest of 1970s Massachusetts, it’s political and personal, exploring the life of an unemployed carpenter who tries his hand at art theft only for his life to entirely fall apart. With a career-best performance by Josh O'Connor, it’s a sharply incisive and often darkly funny gem that bolsters Reichardt’s reputation as one of our finest living filmmakers.

This is felt right out of the gate in a nearly wordless opening scene where the woefully selfish James Blaine Mooney (O'Connor) visits a local art museum with his wife, Terri (Alana Haim), and their two sons. While one of the kids humorously rambles on to no one in particular, his father not-so-subtly cases the joint, steals a small figurine, and conceals it in Terri’s bag. Already, we know so much about James: He’s always at a remove from his family, and only comes close when he needs to use them for cover. I was completely swept up in the excitement of it, perfectly punctuated by composer Rob Mazurek’s excellent jazz score. It’s the first of many simple yet remarkably well-written, directed, and edited scenes (roles all filled by Reichardt) that sets the stage for a spectacular, surprising, and somber crime story to come.

This is just a trial run; despite his inexperience, James intends to steal four paintings from the museum. He brings on a team of goofy guys he knows to do the actual thieving (insisting it would be much too risky for him, since he’s already shown his face there too much), and plans it all out in his basement. There’s an electrifying intensity to every frame of these scenes, laced with a growing sense of calamity.

The Mastermind is a thrilling film about process, but it’s also aware that there’s a trap in such excitement, and Reichardt delicately slips in indications of how this could all go wrong. Some of these are funny, like James leaving the kids to their own devices because they don’t have school on the day of the heist. Others are urgent, like how he has to serve as getaway driver after the wheelman he hired gets cold feet. As the signs of impending disaster mount, James blows right past them.

There’s a joke in the title, too: The main character is anything but a mastermind. He has enough ego to believe he can pull something like this off even with minimal planning and a general lack of thought about the consequences. Even the scene where he tries to hide his loot in a barn by using a ladder humorously undercuts his delusion. That’s where the story dovetails with its historical backdrop, as reminders of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon’s presidency echo the heedlessness of James’ actions on a much larger scale. It’s a quietly scathing, compelling, and astute encapsulation of arrogance spinning out of control that’s expertly handled by Reichardt.

It all makes for a distinctly American tragicomedy. When push comes to shove, James is individualistic to an increasingly cruel degree, willing to abandon the already flimsy pretense that he cared about his family if it means avoiding jail time. O’Connor plays these notes beautifully, his boyish charm an ideal match for James’ unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions. He’s slimy, but human, with the thin protective shell he’s built for himself apparent in O’Connor’s performance and the way the character is written – making it all the more satisfying to see that shell shattered while he’s laying low with two old friends played by John Magaro and Gaby Hoffmann.

It’s the latter who cuts James down to size and reveals who he really is, speaking aloud what was left effectively unspoken for much of The Mastermind: This story is not one of a scrappy thief taking on The Man, but one about a guy who’s just as self-serving and inconsiderate as The Man. Reichardt is a patient filmmaker who never overplays her hand, but this moment shows she can also write sharp dialogue. As James goes further adrift from there, she remains in complete control, applying poetic rhythms to his downward spiral.

This culminates in an arresting conclusion where the depths of James’ manipulation and O’Connor’s richly layered performance are on full display. In one phone call, his many lies and fabrications come crumbling down around him. At the same time, Reichardt pulls The Mastermind’s Vietnam-era tumult out of the background and into the forefront, sweeping James up in a bigger crisis he’s largely ignored in favor of his own foolhardy endeavors. It’s an ending of impeccable craftsmanship and rich ideas and the conclusion to a movie that’s a work of art in its own right.