Masterminds Is Marginally Amusing.

The Good: Some funny lines, One or two moments of performance
The Bad: Lousy characters, Not overly original plot, A number of the jokes do not land.
The Basics: Masterminds is a funny-enough movie that might be worth watching once, but it does not have any enduring qualities to it.


When it comes to comedy, there are few works I tend to feel I missed and actually want to go back for. Masterminds was one of them, which I probably missed because right around the time it hit theaters, another Zack Galifianakis action comedy was released and being heavily promoted. As part of my post-Thanksgiving celebration, I decided to do a little crime comedy film festival to catch up and Masterminds was the first movie on the docket.

Masterminds is not an incredible film by any means, but it does have a couple moments that are laugh-out-loud funny.

David Ghantt is a Loomis Fargo armored car driver who dreams of adventure when Kelly Campbell is hired to work with him. Kelly suggests that she and David rob one of their armored cars carrying a million dollars. David is engaged to Jandice, who has accepted David as a consolation prize after the man she loved was killed by a snake bite. When Kelly gets fired, she begins hanging out with Steve, a petty criminal who wants to use her to steal a Loomis Fargo truck. Steve uses Kelly to get to David to steal from Loomis Fargo.

After Kelly manipulates David into robbing Loomis Fargo, David flees to Mexico with $20,000 from Kelly. David knocks out most (but not all) of the video cameras during the heist and that allows the FBI to easily figure out that David is guilty and begin a manhunt for him. While David lays low in Mexico, Kelly, Steve, and his crew begins spending the $17 million. When Steve decides to collect the $3 million bounty from the FBI on David, he decides to turn him in, despite Kelly's protestations. With David on the run from the Mexican police, he discovers Steve's i.d. in the wallet he was given and Steve hires an assassin to track down and kill David. Learning the truth about Kelly, David starts to stand up for himself and take back what is his.

Masterminds has some amusing lines, most of which are delivered by Zach Galifianakis and Kate McKinnon. McKinnon is delivers the bulk of her lines with a cold monotone deadpan that is unsettling and very funny. McKinnon makes creepy into an art form as Jandice and she has a way of freaking the viewer out by staring directly at the camera and remaining perfectly still otherwise.

Galifianakis plays to his wheelhouse with his physical performance. David trips all over and is incredibly awkward in the way that Zach Galifianakis has played in many other movies. There is nothing overly new in Galifianakis's portrayal of David. In fact, some of the incidents in Masterminds play to Galifiankis's sense of physical performance without having any real connection to the rest of the film - most notably the attack on David by a moray eel and the rather gross poop joke that inevitably follows David drinking water for the first time in Mexico. Similarly, Jandice's Vagaway endorsement stands out as if it were a faux-commercial on Saturday Night Live.

Kristen Wiig is good as a tease as Kelly. She performs well as a flirt who is manipulating Galifianakis's David. Wiig plays the role of a criminal remarkably straightlaced and there are moments where she plays Kelly as clearly thinking about how to manipulate David and with a simple eye movement, she conveys the wheels turning in her character's mind. Jason Sudeikis might be the best performer in Masterminds as his assassin character, Mike, is nothing at all like his Mitt Romney persona from Saturday Night Live.

Masterminds is marginally amusing in a "watch it once and forget about it" kind of way. While there are moments of enjoyment to be had in it, there are no superlative aspects to the film.

For other crime comedies, please check out my reviews of:
The Bounty Hunter
A Bag Of Hammers
We're The Millers

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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All The Humor Napoleon Dynamite Was Supposed To Have (And More!): Gentlemen Broncos Satisfies!

The Good: Acting, Humor, Character, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Awkward pacing gets tiresome at moments
The Basics: With a brilliant premise, humor, and heart, Gentlemen Broncos is an independent film that it is very easy to fall in love with!


As one who has a fondness for good independent films, I’ve been feeling a bit burned on quirky, awkward, independent comedies since Napoleon Dynamite (reviewed here!). I recall being disappointed almost immediately in that film by how disinterested and mean the protagonist was and the film never recovered from that for me (despite Tina Majorino’s presence in it). So, after years of seeing previews for Gentlemen Broncos, I had resisted actually watching the film because co-writer and director Jared Hess was also the co-writer and director of Napoleon Dynamite. But, the concept of Gentlemen Broncos appealed to me and figuring I have limited time before I am reunited with my wife and cannot waste time on films that are likely to be bad, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and watch Gentlemen Broncos.

And I am glad I did!

Gentlemen Broncos is a pleasant surprise of an independent comedy that effectively lampoons both consumer culture and the art world. For the first time in quite some time, I eagerly watched all of the bonus features including the film a second time with the (occasionally lame) commentary track on. In fact, the bonus features, especially seeing Jennifer Coolidge’s ad libs were enough for me to knock the film up to a 7 (the film alone is probably a 6.5/10).

Despite some painfully awkward moments and the reliance upon poop and vomit jokes, Gentlemen Broncos manages to be mostly endearing, enduring, and clever. The acting is wonderful, especially for so many of the cast members being so young, and the characters are interesting at the very least. And for a movie that bounces between three very different settings, Gentlemen Broncos is never confusing.

Benjamin is a high school student living in Utah, home schooled by his mother, who has dreams of becoming a famous science fiction writer. He makes a trip to CletusFest, an annual literary convention for young science fiction and fantasy writers, with a bus full of young people like the self-centered Tabatha and the creepy-weird Lonnie. Benjamin lets Tabatha read his story, but she does not provide him with any feedback before he has the chance to meet his novelist hero, Ronald Chevalier. The cover-obsessed Chevalier is struggling with getting his next book published and when he encounters Benjamin’s novella “The Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years,” he steals it as his own, rewriting the story in his own language.

Following CletusFest and his failure to win the grand prize (which included getting a book published in limited release), Benjamin returns home to his doting mother who noticed that Benjamin does not truly have any friends. Determined to change that, she has Dusty from the youth outreach at church come over to befriend him. As Tabatha and Lonnie make a terrible low-budget adaptation of “Yeast Lords,” Chevalier gets his version published and when Benjamin learns of that, he strikes out to stop him.

As Benjamin goes through his mundane life, Gentlemen Broncos presents his mental image of the “Yeast Lords” story as well as the campy film version that Lonnie, Tabatha, and Dusty are making. Mixed in with those cutaways are Chevalier’s amped up and disturbingly-wardrobed mental images of what his own version of the story is. The film bounces between reality and the various incarnations of “Yeast Lords” and the result is effective, funny, and frequently delightfully campy (one of the best notes in the commentary track involves the co-writer and wife of the director asking him why he bothered to digitally remove the ropes for one of the leaping stunts and she was absolutely right; the film is so campy in that moment that it could not have been more campy by leaving the wires in!).

What I liked most about Gentlemen Broncos was that this was a movie that was going somewhere. Unlike far too many artsy films that drag until they simply stop, Gentlemen Broncos sets up a conflict and actually resolves it. The film is leading somewhere and that makes it more than an academic exercise in strange.

Also laudable is the film’s deeper message on the destructive nature of capitalism in art. Benjamin may not be an especially talented young artist and Chevalier may be long past his prime, but their motivations could not be farther from one another. Chevalier is in the industry for the money, whereas Benjamin just wants to tell stories. For sure, the ultimate resolution to the conflict between Benjamin and Chevalier takes a decidedly ironic capitalist twist, but even there, Benjamin remains focused on (his and his mother’s) art.

On the acting front, Gentlemen Broncos is a tough nut to crack. One hopes that all of the quirky, awkward actors are doing so because that is just how their characters are supposed to be. Both Mike White and Hector Jimenez fill a niche that is awkward and disturbing, but they add something to the film, even if their performances are weird and uncomfortable to watch.

Jemaine Clement is hilarious as Chevalier. He has a dry delivery, but is so authoritative in the role of the arrogant has-been writer that he dominates every scene he is in. He manages to emote perfectly with only his eyes, especially in one of the final scenes in Gentlemen Broncos. Michael Angarano is stiff and awkward as Benjamin and I know that he is a good actor because this is nothing like his slick, charismatic character from The Art Of Getting By (reviewed here!) which I watched just last week. The two play off one another very well.

Halley Feiffer is fine as Tabatha and she had a fearless quality to her performance that is the perfect embodiment of youth. Jennifer Coolidge steals her scenes much the way Clement dominates his. Coolidge is, and this may be a phrase that is overused but in her case it certainly applies, comic genius and in Gentlemen Broncos she gives a performance that illustrates that.

On DVD, Gentlemen Broncos has trailers, a featurette on the filming of the special effects sequences, deleted scenes, a blooper reel and a commentary track. The commentary track is little more than shout-outs to all of the people who appear in the background of the film in various roles, but it is not a complete waste of time (the co-writer has some substantive thoughts more than the two guys involved). Seeing the outtakes and additional footage of Coolidge, though, is great.

Ultimately, I went into Gentlemen Broncos with severely lowered expectations and I discovered a film that was a fun and funny as the previews promised. That is a nice change and Gentlemen Broncos is a worthwhile film to watch.

For other works with Jennifer Coolidge, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Two Broke Girls - Season 1
Igor
Epic Movie
American Dreamz
Date Movie
Zoolander
Legally Blonde
Best In Show

7/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page for a listing of films from best to worst!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fizzle, Pop, Thud: Napoleon Dynamite Disappoints

The Good: Quirky, Offbeat, Well-acted
The Bad: Debilitatingly slow pace, All characters are losers, Plot
The Basics: Awkward and short-tempered socially maladjusted Napoleon Dynamite makes two friends and the audience fails to connect or care.


I went into Napoleon Dynamite ready for a great time. I love movies about quirky characters and I was ready to watch a film with a triumph of an underdog. I tend to like those types of tales. Unfortunately, after the first few minutes of Napoleon Dynamite, I was left feeling like this movie was going somewhere that was neither funny, nor intriguing, nor truly geeky, nor - alas - even entertaining.

I have always had quirky friends. This movie is not about offbeat individuals or quirky, interesting characters. These are the losers the eccentrics won't have anything to do with. They boast excessively about things like their martial arts abilities and have no social skills (not social graces, but just the ability to interact with other human beings) and watching this movie becomes painful.

The movie starts with outsider high school student Napoleon Dynamite, living out in the Midwest with his grandmother and older, loser brother. When Grandma goes off and hurts herself, Napoleon's weird, stuck-in-the-past uncle comes to mind him. This comes at a horrible time for Napoleon as he begins interacting with girls, most notably Deb and Summer and Uncle Rico's interference complicates Napoleon's life. Against all odds, Napoleon makes a friend in new student Pedro and they work together, with Deb, to have Pedro run for class president.

There is something sad about this movie and not in an empathetic way, more like a pathetic way. Napoleon is just so awkward that he is difficult to watch, especially considering I've known so many people like Napoleon throughout the years. They are fun to be around, in limited quantities, because they are just so unique and incredible. However, they are also so out of touch with the world and what is actually happening in it that it is almost impossible to spend lots of time with them without feeling like they are just crazy.

And Napoleon has a short temper to him that makes him wear thinner even quicker. Instead of simply being awkward, whenever anyone shows any interest in him or his activities, he yells at them and snipes and is quick to push them away. Take the first scene of the movie; a little boy asks the protagonist what he plans to do on the bus today and he disgustedly tells him he'll do whatever he damn pleases. The kid seemed genuinely curious and interested and Napoleon pushes him away and discourages any attempts by anyone to care about him.

The character problems aside, the movie is off-paced, becoming boring quickly. Because the characters are so unlikable, we don't much care about them. So, we don't care when Napoleon goes to the dance or starts to plug Pedro for President. In fact, we care more about the arrival of Napoleon's older brother's (Kip) internet girlfriend LaFawnduh than we do about Napoleon by the middle of the movie.

On the other hand, the acting is pretty wonderful. Jon Heder is believable and wonderfully awkward as Napoleon Dynamite. He lends his gangly frame and loose body language to the part in an utterly convincing way that makes us thoroughly believe he is an ostracized teenager.

The supporting cast works amazingly with Heder. Deb is portrayed by Tina Majorino and she is subtle and quiet in a way that makes her seem a strangely likely partner to Napoleon. She conveys more with the movement of her eyes than many actors can with a soliloquy. Efren Ramirez and Aaron Ruell round out the supporting cast nicely as Pedro and Kip, creating awkward sidekicks to Heder's Napoleon that remind us constantly that the chronically awkward tend to travel in packs. Both Ramirez and Ruell play more subtle to Heder's manic making them excellent foils to the protagonist.

But, in the end, I found myself utterly disappointed with this movie. I had heard wonderful things and instead I found the familiar combined with negative traits that shied me away from empathy or sympathy. A superior collection of outsider tales may be found in Freaks And Geeks (reviewed here!), which has an awesome DVD collection that is more worthy of one's time, attention, and hard-earned dollars.

For other coming-of-age flicks, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Charlie Bartlett
Waiting . . .
American Beauty

3/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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