Logan Lucky

It’s hard for Steven Soderbergh to make a bad movie. He’s the mastermind behind the incredibly enjoyable Ocean’s films, as well as the likes of Contagion, Erin Brokovich, and Traffic. Soderbergh had claimed he had retired from filmmaking after 2013’s Behind the Candelabra, but he’s back! This time with another heist flick called Logan Lucky.

Logan Lucky is a satire of sorts of the rural America that liberals love to make fun of. The story follows two brothers: Clyde (Adam Driver) and Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), as they attempt to rob a NASCAR stadium in North Carolina. Clyde is convinced that their family is cursed, he lost an arm in Iraq, Jimmy busted his knee when he was going to be drafted in the NFL, their aunt lost the winning lottery ticket the day of, etc. The two brothers then team up with their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), master criminal Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), and Joe’s two dim brothers: Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson).

Logan Lucky is a very fun film, but unfortunately it has been a drastic flop at the box office. The only reasoning I can think of behind that is that the urban masses look at the demographic shown in the film as the “Trump supporters,” while the rural Americans see Logan Lucky as a mocking of their culture. And therein is one of the problems with this film: all of the characters are caricatures and stereotypes, they’re not multilayered personas.

But that’s not to say that Soderbergh lets us down in anyway. His witty dialogue is still there, most of the comedy landed, and he is able to capture an aura of the world that city-folk are completely blind to. And then there’s the typical great twist at the end of the film, that Soderbergh already made common in his Ocean’s franchise and which still holds up in Logan Lucky.

Soderbergh is able to rack up another impressive cast again, but sometimes you feel like some actors are forced into the film simply because. There are incredibly vague and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it characters for Katherine Waterston and Hillary Swank; the latter who plays an FBI officer in an post-investigation part of the film, which could easily have been cut out and saved us half an hour. Otherwise it was great to see Daniel Craig try a southern accent and don white-blonde hair for his role, something very far from his 007 days.

Overall, the film is certainly much more intelligent than any of the action flick being spewed out today. So if you’re simply looking for a way to pass the time, you won’t go wrong in choosing Logan Lucky.

7.1/10