Masterminds

So while I have been pretty light on the number of movies I've watched recently, I haven't run into anything that has been really bad. I've seen some movies that I wasn't really a fan of, or I recognize that it's not a well made movie, but I still enjoy it. Masterminds might be the first movie I've seen in a little while that was not just poorly made, it was just down right bad.

And that's a little bit surprising because this cast is actually really solid. While I've never really been a fan of Zach Galifinakis, Owen Wilson has made me laugh in the past, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnnon and Leslie Jones are all wickedly talented comedians, and I have really enjoyed some of Jason Sudeikis's recent work (especially Colossal, if you haven't seen that, check that out). But for some reason they are all just terrible in this film.

Masterminds is apparently a true story about the second largest heist in US history. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I thought that this was the largest heist in US history but it's not. The strange thing is, they allude to the largest heist in US history IN THIS MOVIE... so why not just tell the story of the largest heist in US history? Maybe this is a better set up for a comedy but even that I'm skeptical of.

The story centers around David Scott Ghantt (played by Zach Galifiniakis). He is a lonely odd ball who is very responsible and trusted at his job at the Loomis Fargo armored truck company. He's engaged to marry Kate McKinnon making a really strange choice of not being a character but instead being a funny voice and just being weird. I get the feeling she wasn't wild about this movie and decided to just be weird. If it was funny I'd be down, but it's just awkward and she doesn't really add much to the movie. Anyways, David is on track to live a pretty boring life.

But then he meets Kelly (played by Kristen Wiig). She doesn't work at Loomis for very long but not long after she is fired, she recruits David to help her and her friend Steve Chambers (played by Owen Wilson) to rob the Armored Truck company they used to work at. The plan would be to have David load up as much money into an armored truck, rob the company, then David would flee to Mexico and wait for Kelly to join him where she could bring him more money, at least that's what they tell David.

What actually happens is that Steve and Kelly leave David in the lurch in Mexico and eventually when the heat gets turned up when the FBI, lead by an agent played by Leslie Jones starts snooping into thing, Steve tries to turn David in and even hires a hitman (played by Jason Sudeikis) to kill David in Mexico.

The weird thing is, when I explain this premise to people who haven't heard about this movie, they actually laugh. Maybe it's the way I explained it, but in reality this should be a funny premise. Jason Sudeikis actually has the potential to be a really funny character and at first, while he's not overtly funny, I couldn't help but smile when he plays the stereotypical blood thirsty hitman who enjoys his job, so much that he wants to make it a challenge and take David out with an old timey Mexican musket. That's really the only time I chuckled a little in this movie. The rest of it was really awkward and poorly done.

Like I said before, there are some good actors in this movie. Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon are all really funny actors. They've been in a lot of things I've really enjoyed. For Wilson, Wiig, and Sudeikis, I've actually thought their dramatic work has been better recently than their comedic work. And for all of them, their comedic work does depend on the script and director. I don't really know the writers of this show very well but the director Jared Hess did Napolean Dynamite. Now I personally like Napolean Dynamite, but it's a very particular film that just worked perfectly when it really shouldn't have and I don't think he's really done much worth while since including this movie.

And then there's Zach Galifinakis.

Galifinakis for me has always been a bit of a one hit wonder. He's funny in The Hangover and that's about it. I don't know if I've really seen a movie with him that I've really enjoyed because of him and I don't think he's all that funny.

The one exception to that rule is his Funny or Die segment of Between Two Ferns. That has been a riot in the past.

But he's made a career off of just being the oddball and being really awkward. And while that worked in The Hangover, I haven't seen another situation where I've really thought it was that funny because it feels like he's just redoing exactly what he did before. This character is essentially his character from The Hangover if he was Southern from North Carolina and worked at a Armored truck company.

And before I go on, I can't help but think that this is happening to Kate Mckinnon.

So McKinnon is probably one of the greatest things that has happened to Saturday Night Live in quite a while. She is able to impersonate A LOT of characters and she is absolutely hilarious.

What I've found though is that impersonations and creating silly characters for sketches on SNL doesn't always translate to movie roles. Often times it seems like they don't really know what to do with McKinnon on movies like this one and Ghostbusters so they just say, be weird! And without a lot of direction, McKinnon probably just ends up doing something she thinks is funny and could be funny for a five minute sketch, but for an entire movie it's not funny. I'm worried that McKinnon will just be brought onto projects when they want a female who is weird the same way they've brought on Galifinakis when they want a chubby weird guy and I don't really want that to happen to Mckinnon.

I think Masterminds is just a cautionary tale. Just because a Saturday Night Live cast member is super funny during sketches, doesn't necessarily mean they can be hilarious in a live action movie.

And Masterminds is not the first time this cautionary tale has been told. Night at the Roxbury, Waynes World, Superstar, even the new Ghostbusters were all movies that were banking off SNL stars bringing comedy to a weak movie and failing because they didn't have the direction.

Leslie Jones is a really funny comedian, but she hasn't been in many movies and if she doesn't have a strong director, her and McKinnon are going to flounder and just give awkward performances.

Because if veteran actors like Sudeikis and Wiig, who have been in big movies for a while now and have proven themselves to find their niche in movies, can't save a film like this from being incredibly unfunny, how are novices like Jones and McKinnon going to?

It has been a while since I've seen a movie I thought was just really down right bad. I'm usually pretty lenient. I'll have a movie where I maybe didn't like it very much but I can recognize what they did right, or I'll see a movie that I liked but recognize probably isn't very well made. Masterminds was an example of a movie I really didn't like because it was so bad and those haven't happened in a while. Probably because I tend to avoid really bad movies, but sometimes it's fun to point out the worst movies out there.

But those are my thoughts on Masterminds. What did you think? Did you think it was funny? Which parts? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks, I'll see you next time!