LOGAN LUCKY – Review

With Steven Soderbergh in the director’s seat, LOGAN LUCKY is a smart heist film with plenty of laughs and surprises along the way. The story follows the Logan siblings; Jimmy (Channing Tatum), whose football career was ended by a bad knee, Clyde (Adam Driver), who tends bar at the Duct Tape Lounge with his one arm, the other having been blown off in Iraq, and sexy sister Mellie (Riley Keough), who cuts hair in a down-scale salon. The Logans are a working-class family known for a history of bad luck. After being canned from his job repairing sinkholes under the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jimmy gets the idea to pull of an elaborate heist. With his knowledge of a series of pneumatic underground tubes that connect the Speedway’s concession and souvenir stands to a large vault filled with cash, Jimmy sees the perfect opportunity to steal it all during a NASCAR race, thus ending the Logan curse. Jimmy’s foremost incentive is his love for his daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie), since his ex, Bobby Jo (Katie Holmes) and her wealthy car-salesman husband Moody (David Denman) intend a move across state lines that would threaten his custody access. To pull off the heist, he enlists the help of Clyde and Mellie along with safe cracker/explosives expert Joe Bang (a white-haired, tattooed Daniel Craig – billed as “Introducing Daniel Craig”) and Joe’s two idiot brothers, Sam (Brian Gleeson) and Fish Bang (Jack Quaid). The only hitch is that Joe is currently in prison, so on top of devising the plan to nab the cash, they’ll need to figure out a way to bust him out and then bust him back in without anyone noticing.

Soderbergh (directing his first film since BEHIND THE CANDELABRA) and writer Rebecca Blunt (a rumored Soderbergh pseudonym) understand the best part of a heist movie is following the intricacies of the crime’s moving parts as it goes down. Soderbergh is no stranger to the caper genre, having directed OCEANS 11 and its sequels, but in those the heist’s structure took a back seat to the star power of the cast. Here, everything seems real and precise, with the timing of explosions (including a gummy bear bomb), the distracting of track security, a staged prison riot, even the building of coffin-like boxes for the breakout, all detailed believably.

With LOGAN LUCKY, Soderbergh gives us a cartoonish portrayal of the rural American lifestyle – dusty highways, John Denver songs, mis-spelled tattoos, rubber-burning car chases, camouflage pants, child beauty pageants, toilet-seat tossing and apple-bobbing at the county fair – all that’s missing is a cameo from Burt Reynolds. The characters may be simple-minded, but the script is not, and most are treated with respect and good fun, not just the object of ridicule.

The great strength of LOGAN LUCKY is its cast and characters. Channing Tatum, in almost every scene, is a natural in this role, counting on others to think he’s as dumb as he looks while actually a step ahead. Daniel Craig is a revelation, stealing every scene he’s in. Who knew the screen’s toughest 007 would be this good at comedy? He deserves to be remembered next awards season. Driver and Keough are also terrific as brother and sister while the main cast is supported by an impressive group of actors (the casting director should get an award). Hilary Swank, who doesn’t show up until near the end, takes charge as a determined FBI agent investigating the heist. Dwight Yokum is spot-on slimy as the A-Hole prison warden, and I didn’t recognize Seth McFarlane as Brit Max Chilblain, a pompous energy drink mogul/NASCAR sponsor. Katherine Waterston has just one sweet scene as a possible love interest for Jimmy, an old flame now a doctor who he encounters on a gas station parking lot. Katie Holmes as Bobby Jo shows us a side to her I’ve never seen while Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid as the younger Bang brothers up the redneck hilarity several notches when they’re on screen. Sebastian Stan’s role as a hotshot driver is a strong but small one which leads me to my only complaint about LOGAN LUCKY; these characters are such a blast to be with that I wish the film had been longer. The action is tight and the comedy loose in LOGAN LUCKY, one of the best films of the year.

5 of 5 Stars