★★★
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay by Rebecca Blunt
Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid, Sebastian Stan, Hilary Swank, Dwight Yoakam, Farrah Mackenzie
Rated PG-13 for language and some crude comments.
119 minutes
Verdict: Gifted with a colorful, talented cast and a goofy sense of humor, LOGAN LUCKY is more fun than flawed.
YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN LOGAN LUCKY IF YOU LIKED:
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (2001)
MAGIC MIKE (2012)
MASTERMINDS (2016)
BABY DRIVER (2017)
HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016)
Steven Soderbergh, who has returned after a short-lived intended retirement from directing feature films after the one-two punch of SIDE EFFECTS and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA in 2013, is widely considered one of the great filmmakers working from the past couple decades to the present, although I admit that I've never been able to ascertain a distinct style in his films the way I can with a Spielberg, Scorsese, Fincher or the films of any other director working on a similar level. Maybe others see a distinct directorial stamp, but honestly, I don't. He's not what I would consider a "journeyman" director (sort of a filmmaker-for-hire, someone who will get the job done but without a strong artistic through-line or auteurism; a journeyman's career is typically steered by the kind of films they make, while an auteur steers their career with the kinds of films they make, if that makes any sense), because he has more creative control and builds his films up, but his filmography is prolific and widely varied, and the unifying "themes" are sturdiness, quality, well-balanced, and I like most of them, but don't really love most of them. LOGAN LUCKY is not a departure from that, and it's a lot of fun.
Channing Tatum (teaming up with director Soderbergh for a fourth round, following HAYWIRE, MAGIC MIKE and SIDE EFFECTS) stars as Jimmy Logan, a divorced father and blue collar worker in West Virginia, who gets laid off his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and after suffering one indignity too many, he recruits his combat veteran brother Clyde (Adam Driver, best known as Kylo Ren from STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS), and their sister, Mellie (Riley Keough, from MAD MAX: FURY ROAD) in a plan that seems downright decent compared to voting an orange/thin-skinned vulgarian into office: they rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway. During his recently terminated work resetting the speedway's foundation, Jimmy learned about the pneumatic tubes the speedway uses to transport its money into a vault, and with the help of a seasoned vault-blaster, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), they plan to break open the tubes and siphon out all the cash at the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race. Trouble is, Joe Bang is currently in prison, so they also have to find a way to break him out, do the job, and get him back into the prison before anyone notices that he's gone.
An obvious comparison point for LOGAN LUCKY is Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy, beginning with 2001's OCEAN'S ELEVEN, but smashed up with the quirky redneckisms and utter lack of stylishness of Jared Hess's underrated 2016 hillbilly heist comedy MASTERMINDS. If you've seen MASTERMINDS (it's on Netflix US, folks, get on it), it's like that, but less ridiculous and more intelligent. Daniel Craig, who, in his most famous role as James Bond is the epitome of English class, hams it up here as an outrageous hillbilly hell-raiser, carefully staying just on the right side of funny/annoying, and Adam Driver (who himself is a veteran of the U.S. Marines), in contrast, is hilariously understated and droll as the quietly cantankerous Clyde Logan, who attributes his last minute loss of a hand as he was ready to return from service in Iraq to a family curse. Like the Ocean's films, LOGAN LUCKY is star-studded and wonderfully cast in major and minor roles, like Katherine Waterston (star of FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM and ALIEN: COVENANT) as a kindly nurse who Jimmy knew in school and now works in a mobile free clinic, Sebastian Stan (the Winter Soldier, but without his mop) as a pretentious health-obsessed race car driver, Katie Holmes as Jimmy's ex-wife, as well as Hilary Swank and Jim O'Heir (Jerry/Garry/Larry Gergich from Parks & Recreation), among others. Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid, who star as Joe Bang's brothers Sam and Fish, run a little closer to the goofier side, as does Seth MacFarlane, in a weirdly unimportant but more extended than expected role as an obnoxious and self-important British businessman who manages one of the racing teams and insults the Logan brothers, but otherwise, the cast is very good all around.
As with most heist movies, there are confusions that arise and twists, turns and revelations that clarify them, and the matter of whether it ultimately all makes sense or not is debatable in some cases, but the overall movie is fun and funny enough that whether it makes sense or not usually doesn't matter while watching.
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| Images via Bleeker Street |
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