Masterminds

"It's a Die Hard situation, man!" says semi-delinquent hacker Ozzie Paxton (sniveling and insufferable Vincent Kartheiser) after securities expert Rafe Bentley (a spirited and deluded Patrick Stewart) takes his school hostage in Masterminds. Fat chance. Director Roger Christian steals nearly the entire plot of that well-crafted hit as well as ideas from a host of other ill-matched movies but it doesn't help -- this is filmmaking ineptitude on every level.

A malcontent and screw-up, Ozzie gets a chance to redeem himself when he eludes Bentley and sabotages the creep's operation from the bowels of the school. Excitement mounts as Ozzie . . . turns up the heat! . . . turns on the sprinkler system! . . . empties the swimming pool! It's a bad sign when the most thrilling moment in the film involves a keyboard and computer screen; worse, the stunningly ill-timed reconciliation scene arouses hoots of laughter from an otherwise benumbed audience. As for Stewart, his reward for being a good sport about all this piffle is to end up adrift in raw sewage. At the Harbour Mall, Opera House, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.

-- Peter Keough