The Mastermind: A dull, tedious slog

The Mastermind (2025) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang 

In addition to the flowery words of praise emanating from numerous critics, The New York Times recently named this one of 2025’s Top 10 films.

 

That clearly warranted a look-see.

 

Fully aware that the art heist he's planning is far outside his area of expertise, James
(Josh O'Connor) carefully considers every possible detail.

Having done so, I can’t imagine what all these people have been smoking.

Although I generally respect indie filmmakers who weave compelling stories about recognizably ordinary people — a welcome relief from most of the noisy, soulless blockbusters churned out by major studios these days — writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s ironically titled character study brings new meaning to dull, colorless and tedious.

 

“Colorless” is particularly apt. Cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt’s washed-out palette must’ve been intentional, but the result merely enhances this film’s drab, lifeless qualities.

 

There’s a point at which measured stillness approaches meaningless, intolerable immobility, and Reichardt crosses that threshold far too many times.

 

At the risk of succumbing to the obvious pun, this film is like watching paint dry.

 

The setting is Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1970. The story begins in a local art museum, where James Mooney (a somnambulant Josh O’Connor), an unemployed carpenter and art school dropout, carefully examines four modernist Arthur Dove paintings hung in one gallery. Museum attendance is sparce; a lone guard sits, head down, sleeping at his post. (Is he supposed to be a joke?)

 

We eventually get a sense, based on his later comments during a family dinner, that James wants to make something special of his life. How he lands on becoming an art thief is left unexplained. Has he done this before? Who put him up to this particular assignment? Who’s the fence? How did he get to know the dodgy friends who participate in this venture? 

 

Don’t wait for any answers; they never come.

 

Given the year, it’s conceivable that James, his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and their two adolescent sons — Carl (Sterling Thompson) and Tommy (Jasper Thompson) — could have a house and get by solely on her salary. James apparently has supplemented by sponging off his well-to-do parents; his mother Sarah (Hope Davis) is a soft touch, but his father Bill (Bill Camp) — a circuit court judge — is losing patience with James’ ongoing failure to launch.

 

So: an art heist, in order to make quick cash. Why not?

 

Licorice Pizza: Quite warped

Licorice Pizza (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor, drug use and considerable profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Well, this one’s all over the map.

 

That’s no surprise, since we’re dealing with writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson; outré is his calling card. Who could forget the rain of frogs toward the end of 1999’s Magnolia, or the freakishly violent finale in 2007’s There Will Be Blood?

 

Alana (Alana Haim) surprises herself by agreeing to act as chaperone and driver for her
new "business partner," Gary (Cooper Hoffman), and his younger brother, Greg
(Milo Herschlag).

Anderson always is more concerned with atmosphere, attitude and location, than anything remotely approaching credible human behavior. And there’s no denying that Licorice Pizza nails its 1973 San Fernando Valley setting: the clothes, cars, strip malls, seedy pop-culture palaces, and the vibrant, awakening youth culture sense that anything was possible, and anything could happen.

Anderson also handles much of the cinematography here, alongside Michael Bauman; between them and production designer Florencia Martin, they’ve re-created the razzle-dazzle Valley vibe to a degree that’s almost spooky. That said, this is a heightened reality, laced with sidebar characters who usually are more burlesque than believable.

 

In fairness, though, this is a kinder, gentler Anderson: possibly because — in his typically outlandish way — he intends this film as a valentine to the area where he grew up. The on again/off again mutual crush that bonds this saga’s two primary characters is quite sweet at times … even as everything around them becomes aggressively weird.

 

(The film gets its title, by the way, from a once-famous chain of record stores that ruled Southern California from 1969 to ’85.)

 

Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a 15-year-old child star, meets cute with 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) at his high school’s yearbook portrait day; she’s assisting the photographer. He boldly chats her up, much to her initially amused annoyance … but he’s so self-assured, so persistent, that she can’t help being curious.

 

Gary is an anomaly, in that all the adults in his orbit respect him as an equal (even if some roll their eyes when he leaves the room). He’s on familiar speaking terms with the manager at the iconic Tail o’ the Cock restaurant, who respectfully reserves Gary’s “special table” and also tolerates his presence at the bar (sipping only sodas, of course). Alana finds it hard to resist when he suggests that she meet him there, and it’s emotionally deeper than that; she surprises herself by accepting.

 

Although Hoffman’s Gary ostensibly dominates what subsequently transpires — frequently through sheer force of personality — this really is Alana’s story; she’s the character trying to figure out how to become a better version of herself, whereas Gary never really changes.

 

Alana is a failure-to-launch decades before that phrase became a thing, still living at home with her parents and two older sisters (Haim’s actual sisters, Danielle and Este), who also still are stuck with their parents. The high school photography gig obviously is just the latest in a long string of dead-end temp jobs that give Alana a reason to get up each morning.

 

Initially, she’s seduced more by Gary’s lifestyle and environment, than the boy himself. She agrees to become a combination chaperone/handler, leaving his mother Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) more time to focus on the business side of his career.