Kelly Reichardt’s picture-perfect slow heist “The Mastermind”

4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS

The wheels are spinning inside of James B. (J.B.) Mooney's (Josh O’Connor) head, as he plots the audacious heist from an art museum.

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4K screenshots courtesy MUBI - Click the jacket for an Amazon purchase

“THE MASTERMIND”

 

4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 2025; R for language

Best extra: Video essay: “‘The Mastermind’: Undoing the Heist Film.”

WRITTEN, DIRECTED and edited by Kelly Reichardt (“First Cow,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Night Moves,” “Certain Women”), “The Mastermind” is the epitome of the independent film. Many scenes appear to be shot in natural light, there’s a relatively muted color palette, and it contains long periods with no dialogue. It’s a character study that takes its time, despite its pivotal event being a brazen robbery that takes place in broad daylight.

Based on a real art theft that happened in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 1970s, it’s the story of James B. (J.B.) Mooney (English actor Josh O’Connor), a mostly likable schlemiel, who plans an audacious heist from a Framingham, Mass., art museum. Mooney is an unemployed cabinet maker, married with two sons, who thinks he’s figured out the perfect way to steal (and sell) four paintings by the American early abstract artist Arthur Dove.

Without giving too much away, it doesn’t take long for the heist to go south, and most of the film follows Mooney trying to navigate the increasingly disastrous consequences of the robbery. O’Connor is terrific as the hapless Mooney, with a mostly silent Alana Haim as his wife, Hope Davis as his indulgent mother, Bill Camp as his retired judge dad, John Magaro as a loyal old friend, and Gaby Hoffman as the friend’s no-nonsense wife. This is a film that stays with you because it feels so real, because it has an addictively slow pace that manages to be fascinating even as hardly anything happens, and because viewers will probably sympathize with the foolish Mooney in spite of themselves.

(1) J.B. inspects a couple of Arthur Dove paintings in the museum. (2) His two sons Tommy and Carl wait innocently while he cases the joint. (3) As an experiment, he steals a small figurine from a museum case, to see how easy it will be to rob the place. 

VIDEO

MUBI is based in London, and they provide the UK version with the 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo set, while the U.S. version only includes a 1080p disc. Reichardt and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt (“First Cow,” “Emma.”) captured everything with the ARRI ALEXA 35 digital camera, known for its excellent highlights and shadows. They spent six weeks scouting locations in and around Cincinnati, Ohio, and Columbus, Indiana, developing a detailed shot list, inspired by other films, music, and art, he said in an ARRI social media post. “We’re really making quiet, thoughtful cinema here. Something that asks the audience to lean in a little.”

The digital files were mastered in TRUE 4K, but no HDR grading was applied to the muted color palette and flat contrast levels. On the other hand, a heavy dose of post-production film grain was applied for that 1970s vibe, giving it a softer and organic feel for the simple imagery.

The 4K has a slight edge in overall clarity and film grain structure over the Blu-ray, while both feature the same color spectrum. 

AUDIO

The 4K and Blu-ray both include the six-channel DTS-MA soundtrack, which features a driving jazzy score from Rob Mazurek on trumpet, alongside Chad Taylor on drums. Other contributions from Mikel Patrick Avery, Victor Vieira-Branco, Joey Sullivan, and John Moran add to the sonic landscape that keeps the heist's intrigue and tension at a rhythmic pace. The dialogue is front and center, with a nice sprinkling of environmental sounds.    

(1) J.B. assembles his gang and explains the plan to them. (2) At lunch with his mother, Sarah (Hope Davis), he asks her for a loan, with the promise that he’s on the verge of getting a good job. (3&4) J.B. waits outside the museum in the getaway car, while Guy (Eli Gelb) and Ronnie (Javion Allen) snatch the paintings. (5) J.B. pays Ronnie for his part in the heist.

EXTRAS

• Although it would have been nice to have interviews with Reichardt and the cast, the video essay by Amos Levin (editor and film programmer at MUBI) is a worthwhile addition.

• “‘The Mastermind’: Undoing the Heist Film” (14 mins.) – Levin often quotes Reichardt, who referred to “The Mastermind” as “an unwinding film,” as opposed to a heist film. Yes, agrees Levin, all the archetypal elements of a heist film are there: Casing the joint; assembling the team; studying the floor plan; planning the getaway. But the actual heist occurs “up front,” unlike the typical way those films are structured; it “undermines the excitement of the heist.” Reichardt asked the film’s cast members to watch “The Plaint of Steve Kreines as Recorded by his Younger Brother Jeff,” a 1974 documentary about a young man’s difficulty moving out of his parents’ house, as preparation for “The Mastermind.” Reichardt, notes Levin, “sees J.B. as rebelling against his privilege while, at the same time, being willing to lean into it whenever it’s convenient.” 

  
  

  Levin analyzes how the film shifts from the action of the heist into “something much slower, quieter and stripped down, echoing increasingly minimalist kinds of cinema.” He references several Chantal Akerman films although, surprisingly, leaves out “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” her most famous, and considered by cinéastes to be one of the greatest films ever made. Like “Mastermind,” there are long, almost hypnotic scenes of the main character doing mundane things. Also noted are the cult favorite “Two-Lane Blacktop” (1971) with singer/songwriter James Taylor, drifter “Wanda” (1970) and French crime thriller “Pickpocket” (1959).

  
  

  Says Levin, “Underlying Reichardt’s work is a passion for experimental and non-narrative cinema … she prefers giving viewers clues to piece together and interpret” than to spoon-feed them with narrative.

  
  

  Levin also notes that “the circle is important on many levels” in the film, and points out the circular drive in front of the museum, as well as how “circular motion recurs throughout the film … J.B.’s spiraling path drives him farther out to the periphery of things, away from the bubble of his own social circle and toward the reality he’s kept at bay.” By the end of the film, adds Levin, J.B. is “unwittingly thrust into the whirlwind of the new decade.”

— Peggy Earle and Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer

(1) Agent Carroll (Juan Carlos Hernández) and Detective Long (Richard Hagerman) come to J.B’s house to question him about the missing paintings. (2&3) He tries to make excuses to his beleaguered wife (Alana Haim). (4) J.B. goes on the lam.

SPECS:

• 100 GB disc

• TRUE 4K mastering

• Captured on the 4.6K ARRI ALEXA 35 digital camera, mounted with spherical lens (1.78:1 aspect)

• Video bitrate: Averages in the lower 70 Megabits per second range, with a running time of 110 minutes.

• Box office: The low-budget film was made for under $2 million, and its worldwide gross was $2.1 million.

• Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 93 percent, Audiences 53 percent.

• Metacritic: Critics 80 percent, User score 5.9

• Awards: Cannes Film Festival – Nominee for the top prize, The Palme d’Or.

• National Board of Review – Top Ten Independent films

(1-3) J.B. goes to his friend Fred's (Joe Magaro) house to hide out, and two old friends walk to the bus stop, saying goodbye, after Fred's wife Maude (Gaby Hoffman) throws J.B. out. (4&5) He hitchhikes across the rural landscape and takes cover from the police in the middle of an anti-war protest march.