NZIFF 2025 Craccum Coverage | The Mastermind

Review by Madeline Smith

Kelly Reichardt’s latest film may be the least glamorous heist film ever made. The film follows Josh O’Connor as JB Mooney, an unemployed loser with no real ambitions and nowhere to go. He plans to steal from an art gallery and sell the paintings, mainly just to prove to himself that he’s capable of something. The irony of the title becomes clear very quickly - the aftermath of the disastrous heist reveals Mooney’s lack of foresight, and he soon finds himself becoming increasingly desperate and pathetic. Reichardt is one of the few working American filmmakers who is willing to settle into the territory of slow cinema, and if you’re familiar with her work, it’s not surprising that she spends more time on the minutiae of process and on lingering in period details than suspense and thrills. Despite his British heritage, Josh O’Connor feels like he’s been lifted straight from the New Hollywood, and the film heavily recalls the downbeat character studies of that era. Reichardt and O’Connor are strong at characterising through action and gesture. There’s a risk of Mooney’s pathetic traits and stupidity being one-note on the page, but he emerges as a great tragicomic ‘nowhere man’ onscreen.