CINEMA SECOND CHANCES: 'Masterminds'

Comedies don’t always score the highest ratings when it comes to critical reviews, but judging comedic movies on their reviews is often misleading anyway. Humor is subjective — what’s weird and strange to some is fall-off-your-seat-laughing to others. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 32%, Masterminds is one of the comedies that critics didn’t particularly love, but for those of us who love a little dry humor, it holds up.

Based on the 1997 Loomis Fargo Bank robbery, Zach Galifianakis and Kristen Wiig play David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell, the bank robbers who pulled off the second-largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. The duo portray lovable hillbilly crooks so well that you can’t help but root for them. The plot is largely unbelievable with over-the-top gags, but that’s what makes comedies great. The ridiculousness is the best part. Some of the most insane aspects of the movie actually happened; according to USAToday, Ghantt did dance in the security camera footage. Whether it was as magical as Galifianakis’s take, we may never know.

Other notable cast members involved are Kate McKinnon, Jason Sudeikis, and Owen Wilson, who also bring the laughs in this comedy “misfire”, as the critics called it. Wilson plays their accomplice Steve Chambers, the brains of the operation and resident bad guy. The storyline may be slightly linear, but the jokes are the kind of funny you’d expect from a stellar cast of comedians — meaning, they’re hilarious. This movie could be easily written off as “dumb”, but if you watch with an open mind, then this movie should hold up. It appears many people are disregarding the film’s reviews as well, considering it’s the top DVD streaming choice on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

Within the first three minutes, we see the hilarious shooting range scene from the trailer, where Galifianakis’s character almost shoots himself in the butt while trying to impress Wiig, which proved to be even funnier in the context of the movie, setting up the rest of the movie for a load of laughs. The robbery itself is only the beginning. The rest of the film shows the various missteps these outlandish characters make after they’ve pulled off the heist.

It’s the kind of film you watch when you need to feel better, it doesn’t have to be super witty or have a complex A, B, and C storyline; it just needs to make you laugh, and that’s exactly what this film does. Not to mention the adorable scenes with Wiig and Galifianakis’s characters gives this movie the “aw” factor as well. Masterminds is a so-bad-it’s-good movie that you shouldn’t miss. Buy or rent Masterminds and watch the hilarity ensue!

(Image via Relativity/YouTube)

- Taylor Carter, YH Contributing Writer