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I had high hopes after the initial story line but there was no character development and the story went nowhere. I would have left 40 minutes in had my friend not been with me. I normally love independent movies and unique story lines but this movie did NOT deliver. People walked out, many complained after the movie was over. Would not recommend.

In a time when movies are increasingly loud and boisterous, struggling to capture our ever-shortening attention spans, it's both refreshing and startling to find quiet, paused films. Yet this has been Kelly Reichardt's style since her debut River of Grass (1994). She's subsequently used her meditative and unhurried approach to demystify genres and tropes in Meek's Cutoff (2010), Certain Women (2016), and First Cow (2019). Her latest target is the heist caper with The Mastermind (2025).

Set in 1970 The Mastermind follows an unemployed and failed architect James Blaine Mooney (Josh O'Connor), who is listless and demotivated. His wife Terri (Alana Haim) is a secretary and the breadwinner of the family, also caring of their two rambunctious boys Carl (Sterling Thompson) and Tommy (Jasper Thompson). One day James decides to steal four paintings from his local art gallery in broad daylight, amidst the thrill of the heist, James then learns the difficulty of keeping his act hidden.

Employing, her usual slow and deglamorized approach, the first half of The Mastermind has Reichardt showing the rather quotidian way that James plans the heist. It is a wonderful puncturing of the Ocean's Eleven (2001) mystique around theft, and shows our thieves not as greedy men, but rather unmoored, searching for identity. It brings Reichardt's characteristic use of empathy over judgement for her characters; we are meant to observe a character's life instead of define them. The use of Reichardt's pace, helps redefine the crime genre on her terms, yet as she seeks to illustrate the rather wandering "now what?" feeling after the crime, The Mastermind begins to test viewers' patience.

The key to unlocking The Mastermind is in viewing it through the lens of the Vietnam War, protests of which are frequently shown in the background. The story is essentially a miming of the thrilling entrance into the war by an overconfident US, who only later finds out it has no comprehensive exit plan and instead finds itself grasping for answers, and questioning the cost of past decisions. Focusing on a listless man as a protagonist, who is directionless, further elaborates on the callous way that young men's lives were thrown away meaninglessly.

Reichardt steeps you into the frustration and impatience James feels when his lack of a plan leaves him on the run and wandering in the second half. Yet through this narrative tool, Reichardt also alienates and tires viewers. Most of Reichardt's films have been plotless, following a set of characters in a snapshot of their lives, but her characters have always brought rich inner lives and dilemmas. With James we see a rather blank and empty character, drifting towards some semblance of meaning. By having a dry lead, it becomes harder for viewers to follow eagerly. As a result, the second half is dull; effective in the way Reichardt wants to transmit the tediousness of criminal life, yet also redundant for viewers. As such, the denouement of The Mastermind feels more like a sentence trailing off than the effective emotional and thematic final note.

Reichardt brings new faces to her cast of players in The Mastermind. O'Connor is fantastic in the lead role, seeping part of his charisma, which proves crucial to viewers sticking around his character. The British actor is in a meteoric ascent in his career, showing an endless versatility that only keeps you hungering for more roles to come his way. I was rather disappointed with Haim, who was so electric in Licorice Pizza (2021) yet has been given background roles in her last two films: One Battle After Another (2025) and now The Mastermind. True, her main job is being part of her sibling band Haim, but I felt her muted performance in Reichardt's film misused her greater strengths.

In the end, Reichardt delivers another quiet and meditative film, deconstructing the myths around the life of crime. The Mastermind features Reichardt's curated attention to light, sound, and restrained performances. Yet the film's second half, seeking to imbue viewers with the same sense of restlessness and cluelessness as the protagonist, pushes too far in trying our patience, leaving many yawning and staring at their watches as the ploy veered away from thematic immersion and more towards narrative monotony.

A film like its main Character: bumbling, at times slow, unorganized but also very stylish and - all in all - nice to look at.

Great performances by the cast are made redundant by at times terrible pacing and editing.

This film feels like a nap on a foggy Sunday afternoon in October.

If you've seen it, you'll understand.

Liked it but would probably not watch again.

Prime Cannes-bait.

The premise of this movie is great, which I won't recap here. All the actors are great and there are some of my favorites here: Josh O'Connor, Hope Davis, Abi Hoffman. It's the pace that killed this movie for me. I get this is more of a character study than a heist movie, but still, long panning shots of a boarding house room or two characters walking down a country lane while it snows, did nothing to advance my understanding of the character or advance the plot. It really felt like a 60 minute short film stretched to 90+. That said, the performances are well-crafted and interesting.

The Mastermind is a cinematic experience I was compelled tc review purely out of frustration. I gave it a low 3 stars, with those ooints being awarded only because the unintentionally quirky pehavior of the actors made me laugh in a few places. If you finc humor in simpleton behavior in a serious context, you might get a chuckle, but don't mistake this for a comedy-it clearly isn" meant to be one, The film drags, relying on the predictable indie film trope of unnecessary long silences and a repetitive, mood-killing score Every scene felt like filler, with a profound lack of character development and a story that simply refused to progress. I kept expecting a payoff that never materialized.

The ending was perhaps the most frustrating element. It wrapped up with a blunt non-conclusion, leaving gaping plot holes and zero character development, as if the entire film were merelv a prelude to a continuation that mav never come.

For a regular cinema-goer like myself, watching the apparent lack of effort put into the plot and conclusion was insulting. I don't 'ecommend seeing The Mastermind in any scenario, maybe while you're sitting in the throne.

I enjoyed quite a bit unfortunate that many left and are bashing I guess it's slow paced but not that bad. Josh O' Connor kept things interesting enough although he's even better in Champions amazing tennis film highly recommend that! I understand the hate it's not for everyone and the main character's life spirals out of control. I loved sitting next to a woman named Judy she's so wholesome hope to see her again.

Josh O'Connor is a VERY hot commodity at this time. I am at the Philadelphia Film Festival and three of their films star O'Connor!

In this film Josh plays James Mooney, a loser who has a decent life but who is bent on masterminding a robbery of a local art museum. The robbery, amazingly, comes off very well. The problem is what happens after...which is all bad...very, very bad.

The story is good. However, the pacing and lack of emotion make this a film that disappoints. An interesting idea...bereft of feelings and emotions. And, because of this, you just don't really care what happens to James.

I like the main actor. The cinematography was good sometimes. One could argue the movie had its own vibe and style. However, to be frank: it's a voting movie where each scene seems to mean nothing, story threads lead nowhere and the ending just leaves us with questions: what? This was it? What was the point of this movie? I don't think there's was one.

As soon as the film started, I was transported back to the '70s. The colour hues, the quiet street corners dressed in autumn leaves-so much stillness.

Kelly Reichardt makes slowly unravelling films filled with dry humour, and the endings are always a surprise.

Since seeing this film a few days ago, it has stayed with me. That's a good sign in my book.

I'm so glad we have filmmakers like her; they make you reflect on your own life and choices.

Brilliant.

I watched this at London Film Festival and it was really testing my patience. I do not understand what compelled its makers to do this movie? It was a bland plate of nothingness miming serving you food while all you're getting is air!

Quite a shame since I loved Josh O'Conner in Challengers and La Chaimera but this was a complete miss despite his not-so-bad American accent.

Surprised myself by giving this a relatively high rating but, having endured 'After the Hunt' the day before, I found this film full of interest and subtlety.

Yes- there are extended scenes during which I felt perplexed as to their detail and longevity and yet I remained focussed and intrigued.

No- I didn't 'get' the anti-war connections or some of the relationships and yet this did not deter me from wanting to continue.

Yes- some left and missed the irony - I think- of the ending. I'd like to see it again to consolidate my thoughts.

An oddity but well worth an open-minded viewing!

Mastermind focuses on a bum father who leeches on everyone around him. He plots to steal an abstract painting with some of his buddies. He succeeded but the larger groups seemingly connected with the now owner of the painting has other plans AND he has to hatch an escape to Canada for his safety.

I can see it clearly now. I think Reidchart is like Jon Jost. She has an 'story' editing issue. There is so much promise in this film but it is boggled down by the fact that it has removable 'moments'.

The first half and the last third of the film is a good film. In fact, I do think this was well paced for those good portions BUT god, there is such an empty slate section in this film that I do not understand. Like slow cinema even though it is slow - it needs to actually feel planned and densely packed. Some of the better slow cinema 'directors' use rhythm, some use dense framing - Reichart is more in the middle but if she truly wants to be best in this way, she should find a way to create this repetition or parallels with the edit of her film. I was so perturbed that for such a respected director there is a sensibly empty section in this film that feels removable.

But I would say, when it works it was very interesting. Like the first half where O'Connor bumbles his way into his sleazy plans and he reacts sheepishly as he tries to be meek about his dumbass. Everyone from his Mom to his Wife was so disappointed. He played this sleaziness with pitch perfection . And that ending, like had it actually truly found a rhythm in those empty section - I truly believe that this would have been a classic.

Acting-wise, O'Connor really proves to be the most malleable of his generation AND I would be not be shocked that he will be a bigger force in the future even for his age. He has a great gift of finding good enough films that he always pops off as the best thing in it. That's great talent. He can read tone like a box-office star and he has chops to be anything the script needs. I knew I saw something when I watched God's Own Country lol.

Overall, this is imperfect. I think Reichart needs a writing buddy to keep her films tighter. I really felt that it was going to be better but anyways.

This movie makes you feel as if you are in some sort of fever dream. Nothing is happening, but you hear an improv jazz group wailing in the background. Then in a different scene where more nothing happens, a lone person at a drum set plays... their brushes teasing the skins, trying to get you to lose your last shred of sanity.

Sometimes the movie looked nice. But mostly you are so bored you don't notice.

Jazzy percussion isn't going to make your scene more interesting if there's nothing else going on, especially in a year when PTA did a truly masterful job with that and when we were invited to review Godard.

Some good pictures. Alana was a hologram. And Josh plays the pathetic, boring guy perfectly.

Amazing actors and I enjoyed the slow pace. However the music was incredibly irritating.

If you want to use the drums in a soundtrack like in Birdman you better make sure that you have a world class drummer and composer like Antonio Sanchez. Unfortunately this is not the case for this film. This just seemed random, like they ran out of ideas.

Even a good heist plot is touch and go in Kelly's hands. "Old Joy" was just effing dull though I liked her Michelle Williams pottery one for its PAC NW- Portland meditative/verging on drifting out of consciousness tone. Hope Davis is in this one, she's always good. You ever see that nineties romantic indie where she's sort of dating a Boston marine biologist? God she was gorgeous in that one. Anyway, okay.

I watched this movie in a sneak preview, so I knew nothing about it and wanted to be surprised. Over all I got the feeling this movie (showing the end of the sixties I guess) promotes old cars and busses from that time, has the speed of 60 years ago, has a very confusing script and mostly shows how to give a definition of a looser. On top of that the jazz music does not work at all with the images and the story telling. So, I was surprised but in a bad way!

Wow, can't believe there's such negativity about this film. It's as though TikTok has made too large an impact, and people are extremely uncomfortable with quiet, meditative moments. My heart was beating fast during much of it, I love how Kelly doesn't spoon-feed the audience with what's exactly happening in every scene. It doesn't make it boring at all, your mind is constantly working, and it's hilarious laughing at these really dumb characters. I thought there was maybe 5-10 minutes of our main character traveling towards the mid-ending where we could've trimmed it slightly, but other than that I absolutely loved the pacing, and it's why I come back to Kelly's films time and time again, rejuvenated that film isn't dead. It's sad so many people are confused by it, I truly don't understand.

Josh O'Connor plays a bungling husband and father who orchestrates the heist of four valuable paintings from a small art museum and then runs for it when it all goes wrong.

Though the title of the film is "The Mastermind," O'Connor's character is far from it. He really can't do anything right, and the movie is the sad study of someone who's done in by his own ineptness. The movie is set during the Vietnam War, and the constant reminder of activism and social unrest unfolding in the background brings his selfishness and indifference to the world around him into even starker relief.

O'Connor's character isn't remotely sympathetic, which is fine, but more problematic is that the screenplay doesn't create much of a character out of him. We don't know anything about him, and only see him abandoning his wife and kids in the pursuit of money that he doesn't even get. It's hard to care about such an anonymous loser.

The film doesn't really seem to have much of a point, but it's weirdly compelling anyway. It's full of moments (like excruciatingly slow 360 pans around an empty room) that make you wonder what director Kelly Reichardt has on her mind, but it's very watchable. And it's capped off by a dark joke of an ending that's the best thing about the movie.

Grade: A-

I saw (half of) this during an AMC Screen Unseen. I left at about the halfway point because I was falling asleep.

Overall, it's just bad storytelling. There is no pace, the characters have less dimension than the stolen paintings, and there's no incentive for the watcher to keep watching.

Maybe something happens later in the movie to change all that but without the initial groundwork being laid I'm dubious that it got any better.

As the poster already tells you: this is a Kelly Richardt movie, so you should know the reason her name is bigger than the title itself. If you don't know what kinda movie she makes, that's probably not for you. She's the queen of stillness, and If you are only watching expecting to be a action/thriller movie you are mistaken. Clearly the bad reviews left here are from people who never saw her work.

The Mastermind is not what we might expect. The film explores themes such as ambition, failure, identity crisis, and regret. Story-wise, it is genuinely simple, not overcomplicated, and quite rare to come across. At first, it seems like a conventional heist film that actually feels fairly tense, but slowly everything shifts and we are only shown J. B. on the run. As it enters the second act, it not just focuses solely on the escape, but also introduces an emotional drama between him and his wife that adds more layers to the story. The ending is fairly gut-punching for the character, yet it feels somewhat lacking. In terms of characterization, it works well overall, but several characters feel like they merely just pass through and are not explored deeply enough. The pacing is rather slow, with a few scenes that feel dragged out, and the runtime could have been slightly extended. The cinematography is really beautiful and pleasing to look at, relying heavily on natural or practical lighting, with warm color grading that enhances the 1970s vibe. There are no apparent issues with the editing. The production design is also excellent, adding to the film's aesthetic appeal. Nearly every scene is accompanied by a very pleasant score. For the acting, all of the cast deliver strong performances, but Alana Haim truly stands out. Overall, the concept is solid, but it still feels somewhat half-hearted.

I give this 7.5/10.

If boredom were an art form, this movie would be a masterpiece. Almost nothing happens from start to finish, and the main character barely speaks - might as well have been a silent film. All that pointless jazz couldn't save it from feeling like a two-hour nap with subtitles. The kids were more disinterested with their father than I was with this movie.