It’s 1970. The domino effect of May ’68 has barely begun; protests are rampant. College students have been arrested en mᴀsse for opposing the war in Vietnam, the influence of second-wave feminism has reached its apex, and drug use is a political act. It is a time in which staying neutral is nigh-on impossible. And yet, for Josh O’Connor’s JB Mooney (Challengers), a lack of ambition both professionally and politically is a defining characteristic. Instead, he plots to rob a contemporary art museum in Framingham, Mᴀssachusetts.

Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind is not a heist film, but one dressed up as such. It is a vehicle for her political didacticism. Can anyone really stay out of politics, or is neutrality a nefarious myth?

The Mastermind Is An Indictment Of Political Avoidance

Through her exquisitely controlled character dramas and bucolic cinematography, Reichardt (Showing Up) has made a name for herself as a cinematic poet laureate of the Pacific Northwest. Inspired by the 1972 heist of the Worcester Art Museum, in which paintings were lifted at midday, Reichardt’s focus shifts across the country to the autumnal haze of Eastern Mᴀss. JB is a father with two sons and a devoted wife, Terri (Alana Haim, who is mostly wasted), but he is otherwise adrift. Reichardt methodically doles out key information about her protagonist in an almost offhand manner, some of which isn’t revealed until the final moments.

By doing so, JB comes across as a man whose high-risk theft seems motivated by his lack of motivation as much as anything else. His object is four abstract landscape paintings by Arthur Dove, who is largely considered to be the first American abstract artist, and whose God-like presence in the film acts as a counterweight to JB’s distinct lack of ambition. Yet, his artistry is clearly present: he draws the four paintings from memory onto postcards for his lackey, Ronnie (Javion Allen), to study, before they commit the robbery in question.

It isn’t just the why of the theft, but the how of the post-theft that Reichardt keeps at arm’s length. Without knowing who the culprit is, JB’s father Bill (Bill Camp), a locally respected judge, remarks over a family dinner that he can’t understand how someone would expect to extract riches from such an act. And neither do we. When directly asked by Ronnie, his getaway driver, Larry (Cole Doman), or by his muscle Guy (Eli Gelb), JB is elusive and cagey. Terri seems to be somewhat aware of her husband’s activities, but not enough that she, or we, might glean any intel.

We are both in his POV and yet removed from any intimate knowledge. This precarious balancing act points to someone who is as much a mystery to us as he might be to himself. And the film is packed with ironic humor.

Cornettist Rob Mazurek provides the film with an aleatory jazz score, at times menacing, at times sensual, which suggests a much cooler operation than JB is actually running. In the second act, the same music feels like creeping trouble and the responsibility JB has tried to shirk. When the theft in question happens, a schoolgirl meanders through the gallery practicing her French with words like “ennuyeux”, “dépravé”, “factice” (boring, depraved, fake).

Though JB protests that he has given it all a lot of thought, he doesn’t have the money to front the operation and therefore has to ask his mother, Sarah (Hope Davis), for an advance for a fake design job. His team seems haphazardly thrown together, with mention made of Ronnie’s wildcard nature, and both Larry and Guy clearly reticent to take on something so shrouded in mystery. Though JB’s atтιтude seems collected, the sense of creeping dread and inevitable failure pulsates through the opening act until everything, inevitably, falls apart.

In JB’s defense, the job does seem like it might be easy. There is a perpetually asleep security guard manning the room in question and only one other that we see, by the door, aloof. When Guy and Ronnie are in the midst of taking the paintings, an old couple ᴀssumes it is just a scheduled cleaning. There’s a silliness to the mundane. But things do go wrong, especially after Ronnie refuses to lay low, robbing a bank at gunpoint and immediately naming JB as the тιтular mastermind when pressed.

It’s in the back half of the film that Reichardt, who writes, edits, and directs all of her films, shows her thematic hand. With the world happening around him, JB reveals himself as a nothing. The тιтle, too, is ironic. JB is no master of anything, really, except dodging. With peace activists on one hand, and white conservatives on the other, JB tries desperately to stay out of things.

When he decamps to the country home of Fred and Maude (John Magaro and Gaby Hoffman, respectively), he is offered a ticket over the border to a commune, where he would undoubtedly be safe. There are “draft dodgers, radical feminists, dope fiends… nice people,” Fred offers. But JB refuses. It’s not his scene.

The film is exquisitely sH๏τ. The atmosphere suggests the period-specific work of artists like Stephen Shore. In interiors, Reichardt and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt shoot JB through door frames, windows, curtains and the like, as if to constantly indicate the isolation of someone who cowardly avoids reality. In one scene, as JB hides out in a boarding house outside Cleveland, JB notices a neighbor watching Walter Kronkite talking about Cambodia; in another, while waiting for a bus, an army recruitment poster is clearly lit on a back wall. But, snake-like, JB tries to escape it all.

Through the period and genre trappings of a 1970s heist film, Reichardt explores the inherent isolation of staying neutral at a time of ballooning cultural and political unrest. She sees the parallels with today and exploits them through the lens of someone whose talent and charm belies a wayward resignation. Perhaps JB is overwhelmed by all that he might do if he put his mind to it. But, whatever the case, there’s only so long you can run before you get caught up in something. Everyone does, eventually.