SOMETIMES BAD MOVIES HAPPEN TO FUNNY PEOPLE
In 1997, David Ghantt pulled off one of the most expensive bank robberies in U.S. history, stealing a whopping $17 million. Masterminds mines the basics of that famous robbery to make a madcap comedy that plays up the white trash quotient and downplays factual accuracy.
Out of context, scenes like Kristen Wiig using yeast-infection cream as a weapon on Kate McKinnon in a cat fight or a mustached Jason Sudeikis casually dropping the detached ear of his latest victim on the ground, might sound awful, but even with context, they’re not much better. From director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Masterminds relies on making caricatures of dumb white people, complete with yokel accents and tawdry ’90s hairstyles.
Zach Galifianakis plays Ghantt in the kind of sympathetic-loser role that the viewer is forced to identify with, a bushy-haired idiot whose body gags are supposed to humanize him. To the film’s credit, Galifianakis is talented enough to imbue the sad-sack David with some real pathos, despite everything working against him.
Masterminds is the kind of harebrained noir comedy the Coen Brothers are known for, (The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona), but under Hess’s direction, not an ounce of thought is put into making it interesting.
The premise is as simple as its characters. David is engaged to Jandice, played by spotlightstealer McKinnon, who looks, speaks and acts as if she belongs in Madame Tussauds’ wax museum. Their imminent nuptials are interrupted by David’s crush on his co-worker Kelly (Wiig). After she’s fired for insubordination, her sleazy friend Steve (Owen Wilson), ropes David into a robbery scheme by exploiting his feelings for Kelly.
After stealing the money, David is tricked into lying low in Mexico, to wait for Kelly, who will never arrive. Meanwhile, Steve spends the millions on himself and his white-trash-cumnouveau-rich family, while steely eyed law enforcement types (Leslie Jones and Jon Daly) try to track everyone down.
Masterminds does hit the mark in some scenes, many of them involving Galifianakis. In one scene, a graceful Galifianakis zooms down a Mexican street rollerblading and listening to a Discman while escaping a smug Sudeikis, who plays an assassin. But even with this ensemble of comedic talent, the film fails.
Its editing rhythm and tensionbuilding is so off-key it makes something as exciting as a vault robbery torturous to watch.
Masterminds also feels dated. The movie was made in 2014, but its 2015 release was pushed back multiple times because its production company (Relativity Media), filed for bankruptcy. So, the fact that it features several women actors now known for the girl-empowering Ghostbusters makes scenes mocking Wiig’s cleavage that much more surreal.
The ’90s setting feels distant, but Masterminds makes 2014 feel equally quaint in retrospect.