Comedy Falls Flat, Despite Stacked Cast

Bored bank employee David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis) agrees to join in on a massive heist planned by his co-worker Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and her friend Steve (Owen Wilson). Only it turns out to be a terrible plan, and none of them are very capable criminals. Masterminds is based on the true story of the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery, but we think the actual crime sounds more interesting than this over-the-top interpretation. Masterminds opens in wide release Sept. 30.

JAIMIE: I… I have no words. What did I just watch?

NICOLE: I don’t think I’ll see it. It’s kind of predictable — relatively nice guy does something stupid and gets in trouble. But in this case, he partners with other douche-bags, who probably leave him to take the blame.

CHRISTINA: I was barely interested enough in this to watch all the way to the end of the trailer. It just looks boring — which is a shame because all of these actors are usually really funny. But somehow this just does not look funny at all.

NICOLE: I tend to be wary of stacked casts, especially one that lists Owen Wilson as the brains behind the operation.

PAIGE: I kept thinking Owen Wilson was doing his best parody Matthew McConaughey. I don’t know why. That’s all I thought about while watching this.

NICOLE: Leslie Jones’ bit about Kenny Loggins and Kenny Rogers and Kenny G was simply magical. Truth be told, Zach Galifianakis really does look like the love child between Kenny Rogers and Kenny Loggins.

JAIMIE: The movie does seem rather predictable and honestly, the Wikipedia page for this true crime was more interesting to read. I do kind of like the cast. I don’t know that Zach Galifianakis is leading-man material, but I think it works here. I was much more pleased to see people like Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis.

CHRISTINA: I am also more interested in the actual crime versus this dramatization. I wonder just how much the movie plays up the real case — like, were the real people truly that inept?

NICOLE: I cannot believe that this is based on a true story, but then I remember that Hollywood hypes up and over-dramatizes true stories.

PAIGE: It’s just a very … basic comedy. It’s routine. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before in some form with the same actors (this looks like a Ghostbusters reunion, too).
And if we’re picking comedian cliques, I usually am more amused by the Seth Rogen squad or The Lonely Island. So this was just like, ah, how amusing, a movie trailer, and then my mind petered off into white noise.