The Mastermind is the latest film from director Kelly Reichardt, who, along with Sean Baker, is one of the most important voices in contemporary American independent cinema. Having attempted to subvert the Western in Meek’s Cutoff (2010), she now deconstructs and reassembles the conventions of the heist genre. In the suburbs of 1970s Massachusetts, amidst the Vietnam War and the feminist movement, an ordinary middle-class family man named James steals a painting from a museum. However, the director summons the ‘bumbling jerk’ character type from the New Hollywood era to focus not on the crime itself, but on the reality that follows—the clumsy thief’s escape and the collapse of his family and daily life. Through this, she attempts to satirize and deconstruct typical masculinity while exploring the emotional landscape of a failed patriarch. It is a sad self-portrait of America that asks not what one accomplished, but the reason behind one’s failure. Without doubt, it is the most persuasive reinterpretation of a genre in Reichardt’s filmography. (JO Ji-hoon)