Name a famous painting by Michelangelo. Now name one by Vincent van Gogh. How about Rembrandt? Vermeer? Monet? Botticelli? Picasso? Given that Pinellas County has been home to the Dalí Museum since 1982, surely you can come up with the name of one of Salvador Dalí’s most famous works.
In 2024, Sotheby’s Institute of Art — the London-based, private, for-profit college specializing “in art business and luxury education” — published a list of the most Googled paintings. Because, obviously, the most logical way to establish an object’s cultural impact is by assessing the volume of Google searches for these items. No, really. Ask a culturomicist or an infodemiologist. Yes, I just learned those words.
Sotheby’s listed the top 18 results. I don’t know why they stopped at 18 instead of going to 20, but it seems a little lazy. Maybe they had to go for afternoon tea or they were late for a “luxury education” class. No surprises: In the top three slots are Pablo Picasso’s Guernica at No. 3, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night at No. 2, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at No. 1.
Here’s an interesting fact: One of these three is significantly older than the other two. Guernica was painted in 1937. The Starry Night was painted in 1889. Mona Lisa was painted somewhere between 1503 and 1517 — so, at least 259 years before the founding of the United States of America, which itself just turned 250 years old. That’s right: da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is twice as old as the U.S.A. — and she’s still on top of the charts!
Actually, Leonardo’s iconic painting wasn’t always quite this famous. It took a thief by the name of Vincenzo Peruggia to elevate it to its current level of prominence. Peruggia filched the famous painting from the Louvre in Paris in August 1911. The authorities did not recover it until December 1913. In the interim, the painting’s theft became front-page news around the world.
In a new film directed by Thomas Vincent, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is in danger of being stolen. The heist film “Masterplan” debuted on Oct. 16, streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. It is a watchable, albeit flat and predictable, effort that squanders the talents of its cast and relies too heavily on formulaic plot beats.
The film’s synopsis, provided by Amazon MGM, describes the setup: Roger (Stanley Tucci), a legendary thief, sets his sights on the Mona Lisa. To execute the theft, he must recruit two young strangers. Chiara (Simona Tabasco) is a sharp Italian cybercrime expert. In other words, she is the hacker stock character found in most modern heist films. Jay (Victor Belmondo) is the film’s “boom guy,” a swaggering French explosives specialist. Roger has vetted these two potential partners in crime, but he still arranges one final test to see if they work well together. This sequence is our introduction to the characters, although they are instantly recognizable since we’ve seen their ilk in similar films.
The film’s first attempt at a plot twist comes when Roger informs Chiara and Jay that they are long-lost siblings, and that he is their father. While Chiara and Jay initially voice their disbelief, the two don’t take much convincing to accept Roger’s story. Within a few hours, he has persuaded them not only that they are part of this highly implausible family reunion, but also that the three of them can pull off an impossible crime because they are all so darn great at stealing stuff. Pulling off the heist of the century will require a considerable amount of preparation, critical path analysis, a resource matrix, risk mitigation, and recurring rehearsals so the plan can be refined and improved.
They have seven days.
Like most heist films, the characters have psychological quirks and hidden agendas that complicate the process. Nothing in “Masterplan” is particularly groundbreaking. It’s an easy film to watch because everything is so familiar: the rivalry between Chiara and Jay, the clandestine meeting in which Roger faces someone who may or may not be pulling his strings, and the hurried playthroughs and scouting missions that supposedly provide enough information that will make breaking into the Louvre as easy as taking candy from a baby who uses a multi-layered security system featuring closed-circuit television cameras, tracking sensors, thermal and infrared motion detectors and a small army of guards.
That is meant to sound sarcastic. The script fails to sell this team’s ingenuity and dexterity. I find it difficult to believe any of them could steal a paperback from a roadside Little Free Library.
Roger is supposed to be an archetypal gentleman thief, experienced, well-mannered and sophisticated. This is just Tucci rehashing a personality he has played several times in other more interesting films. Here, he is charming, secretive, and wearied.
I struggled with the simplest element of the film’s premise: The viewer is both told and, at least initially, shown that our professional pilferers are exceptionally bright. It is quickly established that they each possess the kind of insight, acumen and alertness to formulate and organize complicated crimes, and to adapt rapidly when faced with unexpected obstructions. As the story develops, though, it becomes increasingly evident that most of their successes are driven by an improbable combination of coincidence and good fortune. Given the many variables for which they had neither forethought nor any form of contingency plan, their accomplishment feels like an absurd fluke.
A good heist movie requires a grand design. It needs a meticulously crafted strategy that considers all the potential impeding factors and determinants. In this case, it’s literally the name of the film — which, incidentally, is a good illustration of how weirdly uninspired the filmmakers are. Calling an art heist film “Masterplan” shows a lack of enthusiasm, as if no one wanted to put in the effort to come up with something more marketable. Maybe they just kept the placeholder name.
Of course, Roger has formulated a masterplan which he reveals to his accomplices in a conventional unfolding plan montage. In fact, the whole film feels like an extended montage, hitting the highpoints without lingering on any nuances or character motivations.
This isn’t a terrible movie. It isn’t carelessly made, shockingly amateurish or lacking in good taste. It is escapist entertainment that is insubstantial and unremarkable. It’s destined to be forgotten, unlike the Mona Lisa.
Lee Clark Zumpe is entertainment editor at Tampa Bay Newspapers, a Tomatometer-Approved Critic, and an author of short fiction. He can be reached by email at lzumpe@TBNweekly.com.