Masterminds

A band of dimwits (Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig) steal $17 million from the Loomis Fargo armored car company. It takes the cops about 45 seconds to zero in on them, and they begin falling out among themselves; one of them (Galifianakis) skips off to Mexico, while another (Wilson) sends a hired killer (Jason Sudeikis) to get rid of him. Based on a real 1997 robbery whose culprits were almost this dumb, the movie is coarsely amusing, even as it leaves the impression that the people who made it (writers Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey; director Jared Hess) aren’t all that much smarter than the people it’s about. Hess deploys the same sneering derision he brought to Napoleon Dynamite; only Wiig eludes his heavy hand long enough to turn in a sensitive and sympathetic performance. J.L.