One recent morning, nine priceless pieces of jewellery were stolen from The Louvre, the most famous art gallery in the world, in Paris. What great fortune to choose now, of all times, to release a film about an art-gallery heist! “The Mastermind” (MUBI), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, is one of three cracking thrillers out this weekend.
We quickly catch onto the era in which the film’s events take place: the opening years of the nineteen-seventies. Yellow-brown walls, pastel-shaded clothes, self-willed sideburns, ill-fitting bomber jackets; anti-war protests (“freeloading pigs” “they could use a good arse-kicking!”), civil unrest, black-and-white nightly news; seventies-font signage with labels like “AUTO PARTS TYRES.” James Mooney, played by Josh O’Connor, is married with two intelligent children, has a judge as a father, and a seriously wealthy mother—and comes across as far too hapless to “mastermind” anything. His dad ribs him: “What does he know that you don’t?” the judge asks rhetorically about someone successful depicted on the television, “You have all the skills don’t you?” And, “You seem to have a good amount of time on your hands.” James borrows money from his mother to pay his unlikely burglar-accomplices and then flounders about organising the motley crew who (no joke) pull tights across their heads in order to disguise their faces during the robbery. Upon hearing what the job actually is, one of them asks James, “This place is just giving away paintings?” Soon enough, one of the hired hoods is arrested and promptly gives the names of the other culprits to the investigating police; James goes on the run, cadging accommodation and money where he can and telephoning home to speak to his kids.
The satisfying, competent filmmaking on display in “The Mastermind” provides many illustrations of fundamental cinematic techniques. For instance, the lunch at which James taps his rich mum, played by Hope Davis, for cash serves as a slick example of how to generate conspiratorial knowingness in the audience. We already know that James is figuring out how to rob the town’s art gallery. As James makes up a story for his mum, he is speaking to the audience as well. “It’s a big life-changing opportunity for me,” James says—a pronouncement with a definite double meaning. Mum suggests that she has been conned before, “And this is real, James? The job and the architect?” But James is not the only one being a tad dishonest during their meeting, “I don’t want your father to know,” Mum says. The segue from this scene, which is unaccompanied by music, to the next, which returns us to the agreeably lightweight jazz first heard at the film’s opening, is heralded by the whistle of a train’s horn. “Pay attention!” the filmmakers are saying, as we rejoin one of the gang members stealing a getaway car from a leafy suburb.
If all the attention which was put into sourcing and using nineteen-seventies motorcars had only gone into expanding the variety of the outside shots of the gorgeous autumn landscape, the visual appeal would be stronger. The scenes which are not in a moving vehicle of one sort or another are invariably superior. For instance, an early scene of James concealing the just-pinched paintings in the loft above a barn while pigs traipse around underneath him is excellent. Mr O’Connor is positioned close to the camera; but, daringly, the shot is unlit. Only with the contrast possible on a big screen is anything visible to the viewer at all. And as James grunts with the exertion of it all, the filmmakers clearly want to impress upon us that the character isn’t even up to the physicality of the project—let alone the intellectual cunning required to pull it off. A neighbouring scene with the police—freshly tipped off about James’ involvement—is fantastically dialogued. One of the best lines of 2025 comes from one of the cops, delivered deadpan: “We assume you might not have understood the gravity of removing paintings from public spaces.” James uses his father’s credentials to prevent his being arrested and continues on with his unpromising plan. In a much later scene in a boarding house, James is lying on the bed counting his money. We see Mr O’Connor through a full-body-length freestanding mirror which is positioned next to an over-stuffed wardrobe—it’s a great shot. Fifty-odd years ago we waited for the morning paper for updates on criminal investigations. There is a lovely shot where James furtively reads about developments in his case (“SUSPECT STILL AT LARGE”) from a sodden newspaper that has been tossed on the ground by a passer-by in the pouring rain.
“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” one of the detectives on the case for The Louvre said recently, according to Sky News. Fifty years ago, similar ramifications trouble the two accomplices. James isn’t saying anything—so the hoods fill in the blanks. “You don’t need to know,” observes one to the other, prudently, “about how the paintings turn into cash.”
Adam Poole
7th November 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
