The Mastermind (2025)

Set in 1970 Massachusetts, an unemployed carpenter (Josh O'Connor) turned amateur art thief plans his first big heist. When things don't go as planned, his life begins to unravel. Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt (WENDY AND LUCY). In some respects, this is Reichardt's most commercial film but clearly she's not interested in a conventional heist movie. This is no THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR or OCEAN'S ELEVEN. Reichardt spends very little time on the heist and rushes through it as to get it out of the way. What she's concerned with is the aftermath and O'Connor's struggle to make sense of what he's done. Since O'Connor is one of life's losers (and maybe a bit of a scumbag), we watch from a distance, we really don't care about his fate. The setting of 1970 (with the Vietnam war and protests raging in the background) amid the counter culture of the 1960s (where theft was often considered a political act) shows a country in turmoil and O'Connor's quagmire representative of that turmoil. Not entirely successful but I liked it a lot. With Hope Davis, Gaby Hoffman, Alan Haim, John Magaro, Bill Camp and Amanda Plummer, whose role appears to be severely cut.