If you enjoy the idea of Kate McKinnon farting on Zach Galifinakis or of Galifinakis pooping himself in a pool that then turns completely brown, you may enjoy Masterminds more than I. For me, I found it the sort of dumb comedy that think it's a whole lot smarter and funnier than it actually is. In fact, I found it sort of horrible. Not once did I laugh, not once did I find anything interesting and many times did I cringe at the sheer idea of this cast having to deliver the material this film provides them. Then again, the film is directed by Jared Hess, a man who has specialized in making films (Don Verdeen, Gentlemen Broncos, Nacho Libre) that seem specifically designed to annoy me over the years. This latest effort from him may be the final nail in the coffin but it's not for a lack of the cast trying. Throw writers Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer, director and story writer for the unbearable Sundance-y Humble Pie to take down what could have been a pretty funny script from the extremely talented Emily Spivey and you got yourself one huge, steaming mess of a so-called comedy.
What's even more is the fact that this true life story could have made an interesting thriller or drama or...comedy but Hess, Bowman, Palmer and Spivey do absolutely nothing with it. The story follows David Ghantt (Galifinakis,) a vehicle driver and security personnel for Loomis-Fargo who lusts after his equally strange co-worker Kelly (Kristen Wiig) while being tortured by Jandice (McKinnon,) his creepy fiancee. When Kelly proposes to David that they rob Loomis-Fargo, an idea she comes up with courtesy of master thief Stephen (Owen Wilson, who's way too nice to convincingly play any sort of master criminal,) David immediately jumps on the chance and ends up having to flee to Mexico in one of those comedy disguises that makes you wonder who thought it was funny. If that's not bad enough, he has to change disguises again (ha, ha.)
However, things get way too complicated and Stephen hires a hitman (Jason Sudekis, the one half-way decent part of the film) to take down David. This results in one of the most unpleasant films I have seen all year, one that gets the displeasure of hating its characters even more than another thoroughly unpleasant 2016 comedy, The Bronze. This movie asks the audience to root for David and Kelly while absolutely taking anything potentially likable about them and throwing it out the window. This makes the film not only a sad and offensive attempt at manipulating its audience but also a complete cop-out when it tries to pull one last desperate attempt at the end. Spoiler alert! This is when it shows what has happened to the real life people and tries to go "see...they're good, smart people" after having just gone "ha, ha, ha...look at how stupid these people are." Say what you will about something like Pain and Gain but at least it was consistent in its meanness. Masterminds is uneven in what it wants us to think, which just makes it uncomfortable to sit through.
If I took the likes of Galifinakis, Wiig, Wilson, McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Jon Daly (Jones and Daly play two FBI agents hot on David's trail,) Sudekis, Ken Marino and Mary Elizabeth Ellis, I could have made a significantly funnier film than Masterminds. It's hard to imagine someone screwing up this bad with such an incredible cast but leave it to Hess. He's been taking great casts and wasting them in these awful comedies for years now. It seems appropriate that a lot of these people are or were on Saturday Night Live and Spivey is a longtime SNL writer (she left last year after 14 years there) because all this film feels like is a really bad sketch stretched to an unbearable length.
(1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, some language and violence.)
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