Masterminds

By Jack Dignan

Jesus fucking Christ almighty. I went into this movie expecting something less than ordinary, but holy shit, I was not prepared for this. I was not ready for the diabolical, vile, steaming train wreck of a film that I just witnessed. The film was originally slated for a release early last year, but was pushed back to October, but when that date was approaching, the film was pulled once again, rescheduled for an October 2016 release, and now, after having seen the film, it's safe to say I know why. This film is so bad that the company distributing it didn't even want to hold an early screening. They simply sent critics a free double pass for when the film hit theatres, hoping we'll all forget that this movie is, unfortunately, a thing, and trust me, I'm trying to. 

Based on a true story (apparently), Masterminds tells the tale behind one of the biggest bank heists in US history, and the aftermath of what follows. We follow the story of David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), a local driver transporting money around. Despite being engaged to Jandice (Kate McKinnon), he starts to fall for a co-worker, Kelly (Kristen Wiig). Kelly's friend Steve (Owen Wilson), a small time criminal, sees this as an opportunity to take advantage of David's feelings, getting Kelly to convince David to rob his workplace of $17 million. He does so, and what comes of this is a worldwide manhunt, led by a detective (Leslie Jones), who I legitimately don't know the name of, and on IMDb she is simply listed as 'detective,' so there's that. 

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I recently reviewed The Accountant, and in that review I stated that everything about that movie just fell perfectly into place. Every component of it, with a few small exceptions, just worked for me. Masterminds is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, as this is the worst film I have seen in a very long time. With the exception of maybe a blooper or two towards the end of the film, there really wasn't anything redeeming about this movie. Like, literally nothing. This film is just pure garbage. Every single aspect of it just went horribly wrong, and I don't understand what anyone was thinking when they were making this film. To be honest, they probably weren't thinking. 

The so-called "humour" in this film doesn't work in the slightest, and I will be honest, that's impressive. The fact that the film managed to get so much talent involved in this thing, and waste every single one of them is hard to do. With a cast consisting of Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Owen Wilson, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, the odds of the film being painstakingly unfunny are extremely low, yet here we are with Masterminds, and they managed to achieve just that. They managed to create a painstakingly unfunny film using all of these actors. It just blows me away how this managed to happen. 

Jim Carrey hasn't been in too many movies over the last few years, and the ones he has been in haven't really been all the good. Carrey was originally set to star in Masterminds, playing the role that Zach Galifianakis went on to fill. Carrey certainly dodged a bullet there, as this could've been the single worst film of his career. Or, perhaps, we got hit with that bullet instead. Perhaps Carrey could've made this film the slightest bit bearable, like he does with practically everything he's in. Perhaps he could've delivered the jokes well (even if they still wouldn't have been too funny), something the rest of the cast don't seem to be capable of. 

While I'm not really familiar with the true story, I find it very hard to believe. The film, one would presume, is an extremely exaggerated version of this tale, or at least I would hope so, as there's simply no way people would have done the things these characters did. Every aspect of the plot is just ridiculously stupid, and not in a funny-stupid kind of way, but in a plain old stupid way. There was a point when the stupidity got to me, and despite there still being thirty minutes left, I was done. I just couldn't take it anymore. But don't let that fool you into thinking the first hour is any better. I checked my watch half an hour in, thinking the movie was coming to a close, and I wanted to cry when I found out I still had 65 more minutes to endure. 

To sum up, Masterminds shouldn't even be considered a movie. That's too prestigious of a title to give such a vile, unfunny, pile of trash. Masterminds is merely a thing. A stupid, painful, 95 minute thing that really didn't need to exist, and that I really didn't need to see. If you plan on seeing a movie this weekend (or any weekend), please see literally anything else. 

0 1/2 Stars