Masterminds (2016 film)

Masterminds is a 2016 American crime comedy film based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery in North Carolina. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, it stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis.

It premiered in Los Angeles on September 26, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 30, 2016, by Relativity EuropaCorp Distribution and Relativity Media. It received mixed reviews and grossed $30 million.

Plot
In March 1997, Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis. They also involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt.

After some awkward training in preparation for the robbery, the team has David go inside Loomis' vault and load the entire money supply into the company's van. Before he leaves, he takes out three CCTV tapes, but misses one. The next day, he flees to Mexico with $20,000 and takes the cover name "Michael McKinney", the name of a friend of Steve's. Meanwhile, Steve takes most of the heist, around $17 million.

FBI Special Agent Scanlon and her partner identify David as the prime suspect, but have no idea of Steve's involvement. Steve plans to tell the FBI where David is, but Kelly thinks it would be wrong to abandon him.

In Mexico, David narrowly evades three Interpol agents looking for him, and calls Kelly about what happened. He inadvertently learns Steve's name from the ID in a wallet Kelly gave him. With his cover blown, Steve hires his hitman friend Michael McKinney to hunt David down. Michael finds David and attempts to shoot him, but the gun backfires and David escapes.

David phones Kelly and learns that Steve is trying to kill him. David is then knocked unconscious by McKinney. When he regains consciousness, McKinney is about to kill him but reconsiders upon looking at "McKinney"'s birth certificate, thinking that David was born with the same name, in the same place, on the same day; they become friends.

David calls Steve, threatening to surrender himself to Interpol if he does not wire $6 million into his bank account within two days. Kelly, while shopping in preparation to meet David in Mexico, is then attacked by Jandice, who has learned of her involvement with David. Kelly escapes, but Steve's two friends kidnap her, and he tells David to get a ticket to South America in exchange for her release.

At the airport, David meets McKinney, who is returning to the U.S. for his next hit. He sees Kelly's name written on McKinney's hand and realizes she is his next victim. When he tells McKinney she is his girlfriend, McKinney says he can't possibly kill her, and they switch tickets so David can rescue her. At that moment the three Interpol agents attempt to start to arrest them, but in their enthusiasm, David and McKinney overpower them.

Steve is hosting a party at his lavishly tacky mansion. The FBI, attempting to record Steve's confession, put a wire on one of his neighbor guests. David sneaks into the party and rescues Kelly. They escape by stealing Steve's BMW but it crashes as they attempt to drive through the gate. Steve catches and assaults David, but David realizes they are next to a disguised FBI van with agents listening inside, and tricks Steve into admitting he masterminded the robbery.

David is sentenced to seven years in prison, while Steve serves eleven years. About $2 million is still unaccounted for. When David is released, McKinney meets him at the prison and they drive to visit Kelly.

Cast

 * Zach Galifianakis as David Scott Ghantt
 * Kristen Wiig as Kelly Campbell
 * Owen Wilson as Steven Eugene "Steve" Chambers
 * Jason Sudeikis as Michael Aaron "Mike" McKinney
 * Kate McKinnon as Jandice Gartrell
 * Leslie Jones as FBI Special Agent Scanlon
 * Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Michelle Chambers
 * Ken Marino as Doug
 * Karsten Friske as Cort Chambers
 * Dallas Edwards as Ken Chambers
 * Devin Ratray as Runny
 * Jon Daly as Detective
 * Ross Kimball as Eric
 * Jordan Israel as Valet
 * Njema Williams as Ty
 * Kerry Rossall as Trunk Hostage

Production
On February 1, 2013, Jim Carrey joined the cast. On June 10, 2013, Owen Wilson joined the cast. On December 3, 2013, Zach Galifianakis joined the cast when Carrey dropped out. On May 16, 2014, Kristen Wiig joined the cast, and on June 25, 2014, Jason Sudeikis was added. On June 30, 2014, Ken Marino, Kate McKinnon, Devin Ratray, Leslie Jones, Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Ross Kimball joined the cast. On July 10, Jon Daly joined the cast to play an FBI agent. The film was produced by Brent Almond. David Ghantt was a technical consultant, but due to outstanding court-ordered restitution for his part in the heist, he was not paid.

Filming
The title used in media coverage was Untitled Armored Car. Principal photography began on July 7, 2014, in Old Fort and Swannanoa, in the Asheville area of North Carolina.

On July 29, Galifianakis was spotted in a prisoner's costume during filming in a redressed street in downtown Asheville. The BB&T Center building, also the location of the production office, was transformed into the "Park Street Citizens Bank", with a Loomis Fargo burgundy truck parked outside. Scenes were also filmed on the steps of Buncombe County Courthouse, inside the Buncombe County Jail, and in front of the Mediterranean Restaurant.

Release
The film was released in the United States on September 30, 2016. It was previously scheduled for release on August 14, 2015, August 7, 2015, and August 19, 2015, a date which, in July 2015, Relativity rescheduled to October 9, 2015. The company pushed back the date because it was facing a financial crisis. The film was pulled from the October 9, 2015 release date before being released on September 30, 2016.

Masterminds was projected to gross $10 million from 3,042 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $2,325,546 on its first day and grossed $6,541,205 on its opening weekend, finishing 6th at the box office.

It went on to gross $29,674,699 worldwide against a $25 million production budget. Additional prints and advertising costs were estimated in excess of $20 million.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 34% based on reviews from 100 critics, with an average rating of 4.63/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Mastermind's great cast and stranger-than-fiction true story are largely wasted on a scattershot comedy with a handful of funny moments and far too much wackiness." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 47 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars, mainly criticizing its lack of good jokes: "The laughs evaporate almost as soon as they land, and some (make that most) of them don't land at all.... Masterminds owes us our two hours back." On the other hand, Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of four stars, stating that "If smart dumb comedies hold a place in your heart, you'll like 'Masterminds.'" Although he acknowledged the film's weakness in its length, structure, and pacing, he emphasized that "Most of the time in these kinds of films the notes of sweetness, naivete and regret feel forced.... Here, though, you believe the sweetness, because Hess and his cast sell it with poker faces." Richard Brody of The New Yorker also gave praise to the film, writing that "Yes, the comedy is funny—even when it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, it’s sparklingly inventive and charmingly loopy—but, above all, it has the religious intensity and spiritual resonance that marks all of Hess’s other films, and it extends his world of ideas into wild new realms, extends his vision into darker corners of existence than he had formerly contemplated." He also observed the filmmaking of Hess as "suggest[ing] a kinship with the transcendental cinema of Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer.... his images belong to a similar realm of astonishment, even if his are frankly comedic where theirs are irreconcilably tragic."

The film was a finalist for an AML Award in film.