Masterminds is an american drama/comedy that recounts the true story of the 1997 Loomis Fargo Bank robbery. The robbery was the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States at the time, resulting in more than $17 million being stolen. The film is loosely based off of those events.
The film has a strong cast, headlined by Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, and Jason Sudeikis. It would be the second film released around this time with Galifianakis playing a similar lovable-simpleton type role, the first being "Keeping up with the Joneses".
Main Cast:
Zach Galifianakis
Kate McKinnon
Owen Wilson
Kristen Wiig
Jason Sudeikis
Leslie Jones
Plot:
After hearing about another bank robbery in a nearby town, Steve Chambers (Wilson) gets the idea of robbing the local Loomis Fargo Bank. After hearing that his friend, Kelly Campbell (Wiig), used to work there he figures what better person to help him come up with a plan to knock off the bank?! Campbell quickly comes up with the name David Ghantt (Galifianakis) as a person that would probably be able to help them.
At first Ghantt is slightly reluctant, but when Campbell implies that if he helps with the robbery that him and her can ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after together. Which is something that appeals very strongly to Ghantt. So, after not much further convincing Ghantt was in.
Chambers meets with Ghantt and goes over his plans on how to best secure the money in the vault and how to best get away with it. All the while he is careful to never reveal his identity or his face to Ghantt in case things go south during the robbery.
Ghantt agrees to his plan and after several weeks of preparing and practicing for the heist. They are ready to go. What ensues is a wacky and unbelievable chain of events that don't possibly seem like they could have actually happened. However, most of them did indeed happen. It will remind you more of something you might see on "World's dumbest criminals" as opposed to something you would read about in the morning paper.
I won't go into any more specific details here as I don't want to ruin the film or the story. If you want to find out what happened you will have to research the story or rent the flick for yourself. :)
Reception:
The film has received mostly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 33% approval rating while it's critical consensus reads:
"Mastermind's great cast and stranger than fiction true story are largely wasted on a scattershot comedy with a handful of funny moments and far too much wackiness."
IMDB gives the film a 5.8/10 rating. Indicating that the general audiences appreciated it slightly more than the critics. Metacritic gives the film a 47 out of 100 rating.
Financially the film has done mildly well. It has grossed close to $30 million to date with a production budget of $25 million.
My Review:
This is the worst film in the history of film! Just kidding, but it's not really that good either. I tend to agree with the critics on this one. For me this film mostly is a "what could have been" type of film. It had a great cast, an unbelievable story, but they couldn't quite put it all together in the a way that really makes for a great movie.
Also, there weren't as many laughs as there probably should have been and the laughs that did happen didn't last all that long. I wanted to like it so much because I really enjoy Zach Galifianakis as an actor and the story itself is so out of this world, it couldn't help but make for a great movie. At least that is what I had thought. Plus, I tend to enjoy bank robbery movies in general.
However, combining all of those things didn't make for a great movie in my opinion. The resulting film left a lot to be desired. It was so incredibly wacky that it felt like the story was cheapened a bit and even made it seem like it couldn't have possibly been something that happened in real life.
One couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a drama or a comedy or what exactly the film was supposed to be. It wasn't serious enough to be a drama, and the wackiness made it seem like it was supposed to be a comedy, but it just wasn't all that funny for a comedy.
My overall rating would be a 5/10.
Perhaps I am harsher on this film than I would have otherwise been for the reasons stated above. I just wanted to like it so much with the actors and story line involved, but the resulting film just wasn't very good. I wish they either took a more serious tone with the film or made it funnier. Either would have made it more enjoyable I believe. As it was, it seemed to be caught somewhere in between.
Overall, I would still recommend watching this film just to learn about the story. It really was one of the wackiest and craziest bank robberies of all time. However, this is not a film I would spend money on at a theater. A $2 redbox rental and is about all I would be willing to spend on this. Just remember that you won't ever got those 2 hours of your life back and for that reason perhaps it is better to just read about the real life story here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_1997_Loomis_Fargo_robbery
Perhaps I am being too harsh on the film. What do you guys think? Have you seen the film? What did you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Live well my friends!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterminds_(2016_film)
Image Sources:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2461150/mediaindex?ref_=tt_pv_mi_sm
