By Jason Yon
Elm Staff Writer
Loosely based on the true story of the Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery of 1997, “Masterminds” stars Zach Galifianakis as David Ghantt and Kristen Wiig as Kelly Campbell, two of the culprits in the robbery. Much like an earlier movie from this year, “War Dogs,” “Masterminds” tries to put a comedic spin on the real life activities of people breaking laws for money. However, the former of the two accomplished more as a movie that told both an interesting story and a comedic one. While the individual actors may have previous reputations, it certainly doesn’t show in this train wreck.
“Masterminds” starts off with Campbell asking Ghantt if he wants to steal money from the armored truck company they both work for. From there, the plot is a predictable downward spiral connected by forced comedic scenarios. Ghantt is trapped in a relationship with his over attached fiancé, Jandice, played by Kate McKinnon, and is strongly drawn to his coworker, Cambell. The brains behind the operation, Steve Chambers, played by Owen Wilson, uses Ghantt’s feelings for Campbell as leverage againstww him. Campbell and Chambers trick Ghantt into stealing 17 million dollars and then fleeing to Mexico with only a nominal twenty thousand dollars, leaving the robbers with the rest. Shenanigans then ensue with Ghantt in Mexico running from police with the ultimate goal of getting back at Chambers.
One of the major problems with “Masterminds” is the lack of a coherent and engaging story. It is questionable how much of the movie is actually based on what happened. It seems that the movie only moves from joke to joke without caring much about what happens in between. The story moves back and forth between the newly ostentatiously rich Chambers and his family and the mentally absent Ghantt. In short, this story was just boring, and the humor certainly didn’t make up for the plot’s shortcomings.
Almost the entirety of the humor in the movie is based around the pure stupidity of Ghantt. His character is built up to be a gullible man child that bumbles around for the audience to laugh at. The setting is also used to try and garner laughs. All of the main characters are meant fill the stereotype of uneducated poor people from the South. For example, Ghantt’s car has a piece of plywood for the driver’s side door and most of the outfits are meant to be laughable, such as Ghantt’s use of cowboy boots and denim shorts. Almost all of these jokes fell flat. The only one from memory that was actually on point was a clever joke about rich mouth breathers. The movie was all but completely forgetful until the very end.
The best part of “Masterminds” came during the credits, when bloopers from filming were shown. It was obvious from these scenes that the actors had a lot of fun filming the movie. All of the jokes from the bloopers were much better than the ones in the actual movie even though they were probably improvised. While it’s not surprising that movie was less than stellar, it is disappointing to see actors such as Zach Galifianakis produce something like it. “Masterminds” is easily one of the worst movies of the year and certainly not worth seeing at any time.
Score: D-