Masterplan Review: Tucci's Breezy Heist Comedy

Roger has spent a lifetime lifting things that don't belong to him, and now he wants the big one: the Mona Lisa. Too old to go it alone, he assembles a pair of young operators - Chiara, a sharp-eyed Italian with a talent for getting through doors, and Jay, a French hustler with a gift for talking his way out of rooms. Only after they're committed does Roger reveal the truth: they're brother and sister, separated years ago, and he's the father who walked out on both of them.

What follows is a chaotic reunion nobody requested, with the heist clock ticking while the family works out a lifetime of grievances in stolen moments between security patrols and double-crosses. Vincent keeps the plot moving briskly, stringing together recon scenes, near-misses, and one nicely staged museum infiltration, though the screenplay treats the emotional revelations as speed bumps rather than the engine of the story. The result is a film that occasionally wants to be about something - inheritance, forgiveness, the mess of blood ties - without ever slowing down long enough to mean it.

Masterplan is at its best when it stops pretending to be a drama. Tucci is the film's center of gravity, playing Roger with a weary, amused confidence that suggests he's done this a hundred times and been caught forty. He delivers exposition like a man telling a favorite lie and finds real tenderness in a handful of quiet scenes with his on-screen children. Simona Tabasco brings a spiky, impatient energy as Chiara, and Victor Belmondo leans into Jay's easy charm without overplaying the wounded son. The sibling dynamic - half-recrimination, half-instinctive teamwork - is the freshest thing in the movie.

Vincent, working in English with a Hollywood production, keeps the pace tight and the locations glossy. There's a pleasing old-fashioned quality to the caper mechanics; nobody's reinventing the heist wheel, but the wheels turn smoothly. Bruno Bilotta's hulking enforcer, credited as "Scary Big Roman," is a fun bit of texture, and the supporting players - Eliott Margueron, Barbara Lo Gaglio, Etienne Guillou-Kervern - fill out the margins with competence.

Where it stumbles is tone. The film can't decide if the father reveal is a gut-punch or a gag, so it plays it as both and lands on neither. Big emotional beats get undercut by a quip, and the third act's reconciliation feels unearned - a couple of heart-to-hearts standing in for years of abandonment. The heist itself is clean but low on genuine surprise; you'll spot most of the turns early. And for an action-thriller, the action is modest, more scuffle than spectacle.

None of this is fatal. It's the kind of movie that knows exactly what it is - a star vehicle with a clever hook and a tight runtime - and mostly delivers on that modest promise. It just leaves you wishing it had trusted its own premise enough to slow down and feel something.

Pros

• Stanley Tucci's wry, warm turn anchors the whole affair
• The sibling dynamic between Tabasco and Belmondo crackles
• Brisk pacing and a tight 110-minute runtime
• Glossy Rome-to-Paris production values

Cons

• The father reveal is played for both drama and comedy, landing on neither
• The third-act reconciliation feels rushed and unearned
• Heist beats are predictable and low on spectacle
• Supporting characters are largely functional

Masterplan won't steal your heart the way it steals the Louvre's most famous smile, but it's a likable, well-cast diversion with just enough Tucci to justify the trip. Stream it on a lazy evening - just don't expect the family drama to hit as hard as the premise suggests. A solid 7/10 caper with a few missed opportunities tucked in its bag.