THE MASTERMIND – Review by Loren King

There’s the heist movie and its glorious sub-genre, the swaggering ‘70s heist movie with such diverse titles including Dog Day Afternoon, The Getaway, and even Barbara Loden’s great Wanda. With her distinct style, writer-directorKelly Reichardt delivers her own spin on that genre. It may be the heist — in this case, a horribly executed museum art theft — that catches our attention but it’s the perfect, shambling atmosphere of 1970 New England including the cars, clothes and languorous characters that keeps us enthralled. The film also captures the elusive spirit of the times and the culture of the era.

The Vietnam war and anti-war protests may fill TV screens but it’s a distant occurrence for most, especially middle class, white sons of privilege like Josh O’Connor’s James Mooney. Married with two young sons, Mooney is still tied to his parents — a prominent judge (Bill Camp) and a caring but upright mother (Hope Davis) who bails her under-employed son out again and again with instructions to keep the check she writes “between us.” He eats dinner with them every week and dumps his wife and kids there when he goes on the lam.

James may see himself himself as rebel or dropout but, in the end, he’s just a selfish ne’er-do-well. That’s what makes the film’s ending surprising as well as satisfying and sad. Before that, we are treated to Reichardt’s signature long takes; exquisitely framed shots; sumptuous cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt; and a slow and steady focus on characters who are interesting even when they’re doing little: waiting for a bus in the cold; eating a sandwich or clumsily hiding abstract works of art in a filthy barn at dawn as only the world’s worst art thief might do.