It’s never easy to make a smart comedy, but it’s that much harder when your subject is essentially rabid stupidity. It would be nice to say that’s what director Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite”) set out to do with his latest comedy, “Masterminds,” but the movie is so all over the place that you have to wonder if the moments of intelligence were intentional or completely accidental.
What happens?
Simpleton David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis) drives an armored vehicle, transporting millions of dollars for his employer, Loomis Fargo. Though he’s engaged to Jandice (Kate McKinnon), he harbors a crush on his co-worker Kelly (Kristen Wiig). Her childhood friend Steve (Owen Wilson) is the half-wit criminal boss of the trailer park and convinces her to bring David in on a scheme to rob Loomis Fargo. David would do anything for Kelly, but when he escapes to Mexico following the heist, Steve and his gang pin the blame on him and begin spending the $17 million loot.
What’s good?
“Masterminds” works best when it acts as a parody of its own story. Kelly uses her sexuality to manipulate David into committing the robbery, but her tactics aren’t exactly sexy. “I’ve got to go wash my pantyhose with my mouth,” she says breathily into the phone. Leslie Jones plays a hard-talking FBI agent on the case, and a lot of her dialogue feels mockingly stolen from a cheesy cop show. When Steve sends a “pervert-looking” hit man (Jason Sudeikis) to Mexico to take David out, the two bond over the most ridiculous reason and then frolic on the beach together. It’s these moments that subvert expectations that bring the best laughs to “Masterminds.”
What’s bad?
For every interesting moment in the film, there are two more that are unimaginative. Watching Galifianakis trip over boxes of money while pulling off the heist or have diarrhea in a Mexican pool after drinking the water might make a 5-year-old laugh, but it just feels lazy in an adult comedy. When Kelly and Jandice get into a catfight over David, Hess does nothing to satirize that very familiar trope. McKinnon is wasted, Wilson is unconvincing as a hick and the whole film takes a very condescending view of people with low incomes.
Final verdict
Good and interesting jokes are peppered throughout, but they only serve to highlight the bar that “Masterminds” couldn’t hit.
2 stars (out of four)
@lchval | laurenchval@redeyechicago.com
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