Masterminds

Although based on a true story—a 1997 robbery of an armored car company in North Carolina that became known as the “hillbilly heist”—filmmaker Jared Hess's Masterminds is basically a feature-length Three Stooges comedy, in which all of the characters are depicted as imbecilic dolts. The most notable is David (Zach Galifianakis), a company driver caught on a security camera laboriously loading $17 million into a getaway van. David has been seduced into committing the crime by former employee Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and her dumbbell friend Steve (Owen Wilson). Before he can be arrested, however, David flees to Mexico, where Steve sends Mike (Jason Sudeikis), an oddball hit-man, to kill him after a falling-out. Admittedly, the actual crooks were hardly the brightest bulbs in the box, but the script refashions them into complete yokels, with David, Steve, and Mike coming across as dumb, dumber, and dumbest. The other characters—including Leslie Jones as an FBI agent and Kate McKinnon as the manipulative fiancée David leaves at the altar—make for a full deck of redneck jokers. A painfully unfunny film, this is not recommended. (F. Swietek)