Masterminds

Masterminds

Starring Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis

Directed by Jared Hess

The Story:
David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis) is a low-key armored car driver for Loomis Fargo & Company, and lives the life of the straight and narrow.  He's about to be wed to Jandice (Kate McKinnon), and maintains a playful friendship with co-worker Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig), but he soon develops romantic feelings for her.

When Kelly's friend Steve (Owen Wilson) devises a plan to rob Loomis Fargo, he convinces Kelly to convince David to be the man on the inside, and he goes along with it because Kelly promised she would go with him to Mexico.  After pulling off the heist, David heads to Mexico and awaits Kelly's arrival, but things aren't as they seem, and Steve instead hires hitman Mike McKinney (Jason Sudeikis) to silence him permanently.

The Synopsis:
When the words "based on a true story" flash across the screen, you think that a film filled with such stupid characters could never exist in real life, but after reading through the information on the case, surprisingly, it doesn't seem that far from the truth.  This is the true life story of a group of hillbilly rednecks who rob an armored car company of $17 million dollars, a record amount at the time.

Director Jared Hess (who also directed "Napoleon Dynamite") delivers a solid script with a fantastic comedic cast, a film that has more laughs than not, and where the best performances tended to come from the secondary characters.  The film itself was marred with problems, the biggest being the production company - Relativity - went bankrupt, causing the film to sit in limbo for over a year before finally being released.  Generally, when a film is delayed, it's due to problems with the film itself, which is a big reason why it didn't hit it big in the box office, despite it being filled with humor from start to finish.

The story seems so unbelievable, yet most of the facts of the real life story are mixed into the script in such a way you can't tell what's real and what's imagined, and then you learn that truth is sometimes much stranger than fiction.  The basic premise of the film is what happened in real life - the mild-mannered armored car driver being roped into the robbery at the hands of a pretty co-worker, his fleeing to Mexico, the hitman, and many other aspects the film portrays actually happened (although I hope in not such bumbling manner).

Zach Galifianakis has always proven himself to be comedic gold in an ensemble piece (such as "The Hangover" and its subsequent sequels), but he rarely pulls off a leading man comedy role, and unfortunately his performance in "Masterminds" is nothing to write home about, as his brand of slapstick humor with the "aw shucks" everyman does get tiresome after awhile.  There are moments of pure brilliance (such as when he transferred the money to the car), but several times during the film his performance was near insufferable.

Owen Wilson, on the other hand, has proven to hold a film all his own, but here he's regulated to second-rate bad guy, the real "mastermind" of the operation (in quotations because even that title is far above his intelligence pay rate), and the one-dimensional villain you'd expect to see.

Kristen Wiig plays Kelly, the romantic interest of David and someone who uses him in order to pull off the heist, but in a rare character turn, actually develops feelings for him.  She's a nice girl at heart, and doesn't want to see anyone hurt, let alone David.  While most characters in this role are hated and despised, Wiig manages to pull off sympathy and empathy as well as deliver some solid physical humor.

Then there's the trio of scene stealers in Jason Sudeikis, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones.  As the hitman Steve hires to kill David, Sudeikis pulls off the slimy character you'd expect him to be, but also harbors a deeply emotional center that comes out in a surprising way.  McKinnon plays David's fiancee Jandice, and absolutely nails her performance, delivering every line with deadpan monotone humor and a face that never changes expressions.  Then there's Leslie Jones, who plays the FBI agent on the heels of the culprits, who deliver the most hilarious lines in the entire film ("Look at him.  He looks like Kenny Rogers and Kenny Loggins had a lovechild, and then Kenny G., he just showed up to the birthday party, started playin' the flute, and messed this boy up").

Even though the comedy is solid, it's shoddy at best - when it lands, it lands big, but when it fails, it fails equally as big.  While the performances by the secondary actors deliver solidly, it's the comedy by Galifianakis that fails the hardest.  As I said before, he's great at being in an ensemble comedy piece, but can't hold a film by himself (look no further than his other disaster, "Keeping Up With the Joneses," to see that).

The Summary:
With some solid comedy by the majority of the actors, "Masterminds" succeeds in being a low-brow comedy that will have you laughing during the film, but then forgetting why you were laughing after it ended.

The Score: B-