MASTERMINDS is a Die Hard ripoff, more or less meant for young teenagers. No one dies, and in fact, the bad guys go out of their way to ensure even their police pursuers don't come to harm. No kid ever fires a gun (except one instance of an air gun with a stun dart). Despite this, the main character (Vincent Kartheiser), who is a whiz with all kinds of computer and MacGyver-like devices, wires up dynamite that ends up destroying a huge section of a school. There's also plenty of rockets, explosions and gunfire to go around, and a few swear words. It's as if they were holding back but likewise wanted to make it edgy enough that its tween/teen audience wouldn't dismiss it as "kid's stuff". The result is a bit of an identity crisis, with some of the violence more appropriate to teens, but other elements that are more of an all-ages afterschool special.
Anyway, the basic plot is Patrick Stewart, masquerading as a security systems installer, has actually installed a new security system to serve his own devices at a wealthy prep school. His plan is to hold the students hostage so the wealthy parents are forced to pay huge ransoms. Unfortunately, Ozzie, played by Vincent Kartheiser, just happens to learn of their plan. He sets to work figuring out how to free the kids, which also includes his step-sister.
From there, this film is instantly forgettable to anyone outside its 11-14 age range, with a kitchen sink of action scenes, MacGyver-isms and computer hacking you've seen a thousand times. None particularly inventive or clever such as films like The Goonies. A few feel "slip-on-the-banana-peel" inspired by the Home Alone films.
Patrick Stewart is the only decent actor. He's a suitably evil bad guy and I was able to forget he wasn't piloting a starship every single week in syndication on my TV. Every other character is phoning it in except Kartheiser. He tries, but comes off as a very generic teen actor, with none of the charisma of young actors like Corey Haim, River Phoenix, Matthew Broderick or Michael J Fox, before him. The late 90s seemed to be a desert of young male stars, but Joseph Gordon Levitt or Jonathan Taylor Thomas would have been my picks for this role.
Given the aforementioned identity crisis of flirting with the lines of adult violence against other "kids rule, grownups drool" ingredients, the best I can say for MASTERMINDS is it might appeal to young teens or tweens but the violence might go too far.
Anyway, the basic plot is Patrick Stewart, masquerading as a security systems installer, has actually installed a new security system to serve his own devices at a wealthy prep school. His plan is to hold the students hostage so the wealthy parents are forced to pay huge ransoms. Unfortunately, Ozzie, played by Vincent Kartheiser, just happens to learn of their plan. He sets to work figuring out how to free the kids, which also includes his step-sister.
From there, this film is instantly forgettable to anyone outside its 11-14 age range, with a kitchen sink of action scenes, MacGyver-isms and computer hacking you've seen a thousand times. None particularly inventive or clever such as films like The Goonies. A few feel "slip-on-the-banana-peel" inspired by the Home Alone films.
Patrick Stewart is the only decent actor. He's a suitably evil bad guy and I was able to forget he wasn't piloting a starship every single week in syndication on my TV. Every other character is phoning it in except Kartheiser. He tries, but comes off as a very generic teen actor, with none of the charisma of young actors like Corey Haim, River Phoenix, Matthew Broderick or Michael J Fox, before him. The late 90s seemed to be a desert of young male stars, but Joseph Gordon Levitt or Jonathan Taylor Thomas would have been my picks for this role.
Given the aforementioned identity crisis of flirting with the lines of adult violence against other "kids rule, grownups drool" ingredients, the best I can say for MASTERMINDS is it might appeal to young teens or tweens but the violence might go too far.