Logan Lucky seems
like the kind of movie that would fall apart at the seams if it were made by
any other team. This is the latest from Steven Soderbergh, a filmmaker known
for mainstream style movies with an auteur sensibility like the Ocean’s trilogy,
Erin Brocovich and Magic Mike, who had just come out of a four-year
retirement from film directing. On the surface, it looks like a riff on his
most well-known film, Ocean’s Eleven
if you replaced everyone with the cast of The
Dukes of Hazzard. Hell, there’s even a tongue-in-cheek moment where a news
reporter offhandedly refers to the big caper as “Ocean’s 7/11”, so the irony
isn’t lost on anyone. While it’s another great heist film from the man who
reinvented the heist film for the new millennium, what makes this one so
special is how straightforward yet unlikely it is. The cast is unconventional,
the motivations are simple and the goal is clear-cut.
Our story takes place in rural West Virginia and focuses on the
Logan brothers, a pair of siblings who are convinced that their family is
cursed. Jimmy (Channing Tatum) is a former high school football star who was recently
laid off from his mining job and is in the midst of a divorce, and his brother
Clyde (Adam Driver) is a bartender who lost him arm while serving in Iraq. Both
get the crazy idea that the family curse will somehow be lifted if they pull
off a massive heist where they rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North
Carolina during the Coca-Cola 600. To pull this off, they enlist the help of
their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) and incarcerated explosives expert “Joe Bang”
(Daniel Craig), the latter of which agrees to help on the condition that they
break him out of jail and then get him back in before anyone notices he’s gone.
The thing that makes Logan
Lucky stand out so much is how ingrained in the culture of the rural
American South it is. This has a lot to do with the fact that most of the big
names behind it are southerners themselves (Soderbergh grew up in Georgia,
Virginia and Louisiana, and Channing Tatum, who also has a producing credit,
was born and raised in Alabama), giving the characters and setting a sense of
authentic affection that we don’t see that often in movies anymore. Even though
half the cast talks like they’re doing their best impression of Boomhauer from King of the Hill, much of the movie is
rooted in staples of Southern culture like NASCAR, John Denver, child beauty
pageants and county fairs, but the film counts in parts on the audience
underestimating its characters so the impact is greater when it’s revealed that
some of them are way smarter than we give them credit for. In fact, there’s a
pair of FBI agents who come in late in the game and make the same mistakes we
did, and it’s practically the only reason the heist was able to go as far as it
did.
While Ocean’s Eleven
is the closest and most obvious comparison, Logan
Lucky also has elements of late-era Soderbergh’s work like Magic Mike and The Girlfriend Experience, IE going to great and desperate lengths
to make ends meet in times of economic hardship. The force driving the Logan
brothers isn’t fame or glory or revenge or any of the sexy motivations that usually
push people forward in these kinds of movies. Jimmy just wants enough money to
convince his ex-wife and her rich new husband to not move to another state so
he can be close to his daughter. Clyde is content with his lot in life even if
he is missing an arm, but his belief in the family curse outweighs
his resentment toward his brother for constantly getting him in trouble. While watching
the great robbery (which involves syphoning a bunch of cash from the raceway’s
pneumatic tube system and sneaking it out through underground tunnels) unfold
is the reason to see this movie, the quiet moments between the family members
are what bring it down to Earth, even if they come dangerously close to being
corny. There’s a moment during Jimmy’s daughter’s beauty pageant that would be
the most insufferably cringe-inducing thing on the planet in any other movie,
but here packs an emotional punch that’s been building up from the very
beginning.
A movie like this, however, lives and dies by its cast, and
everyone pulls their weight. Tatum and Driver and amazingly convincing as
brothers even though they look nothing alike, with Tatum giving weight to an
unlucky man who just wants the best for his family, and Driver brings a quiet
dignity to a man undeterred by his disability. They’re rounded out by stellar
performances from Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Farrah Mackenzie, Brian Gleeson, Jack
Quaid, Hilary Swank (hey, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while) and even
Seth MacFarlane, but it’s Daniel Craig who walks away with the show. Craig is virtually
unrecognizable in what is easily the highlights of his acting career. The “introducing”
preface in the credits is obviously a gag, but it’s such a big departure for
him that if it weren’t for the fact that he’s the current James Bond, one could
be forgiven for thinking that Soderbergh had just discovered some previously
unknown character actor.
Overall, Logan Lucky
is a stellar heist film with a lot of heart and character, and one of the
better movies to come out this summer, especially in the dog days of August. It’s
not nearly as good as Baby Driver,
but if you liked that, then there’s no reason that you won’t like this one.
8/10
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