Masterminds (film)

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For other uses of "Masterminds", see Masterminds (disambiguation).

Masterminds
Directed by	Roger Christian
Produced by	Floyd Byars Robert Franklin Dudelson
Written by	Floyd Byars & Alex Siskin & Chris Black (story) Floyd Byars (screenplay
Starring	Patrick Stewart Vincent Kartheiser Brenda Fricker Bradley Whitford Matt Craven Annabelle Gurwitch Jon Abrahams Katie Stuart
Music by	Anthony Marinelli
Cinematography	Nic Morris
Editing by	Robin Russell
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	August 22, 1997 (USA)
Running time	106 min.
Language	English
Budget	Unknown
Gross revenue	$1,890,472 (USA)
IMDb profile

Masterminds^[1] is a 1997 comedy action film starring Patrick Stewart.

[edit] Plot synopsis

Masterminds is about a young prankster/hacker named Oswald "Ozzie" Paxton (played by Vincent Kartheiser), who has an unhappy relationship with his parents (due mostly to his hacking and troublemaking).

Forced to take his sister to school as punishment for being caught in a highly illegal hack, Ozzie finds that former-school-employee-turned-security-officer Rafe Bentley (Patrick Stewart) has taken hostages in a ransom demand. Ozzie, having accomplished his assigned task, stays behind to pull one last prank, but becomes the sole hope of the hostages when his sister is taken as an insurance measure by the security officer.

It turns out that the hostages are all children of wealthy families, and Bentley has long been in the planning stages of a ransom scheme involving their parents' corporations. Ozzie, re-entering the school via a long-disused-and-boarded-up room, quickly becomes a one-man army, using his knowledge of computers and practical jokes to rescue the hostages, and make himself Bentley's personal nightmare.

Ozzie's nemesis, Principal Maloney, is taken by Bentley in his last-ditch effort to escape through the school's disused heating tunnels , but Bentley just as quickly lets her go when it's clear that she's not going to come willingly. Soon afterward, Bentley sees the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel', only to discover that the light leads only one place: a sewage reclamation plant. Then the credits roll.

The film can been considered a "teen" version of Die Hard, due to similar plot lines.