Logan Lucky Review
Like most of my generation, I was a little forlorn when Steven Soderbergh, one of the leading lights in the 90’s indie movement and later one of Hollywood’s most versatile directors, declared in 2013 that he was retiring from film-making.
A retirement which was then downgraded to a hiatus.
And a hiatus which this year has ended in a comeback.
Soderbergh’s name returns to cinema screens this month with Logan Lucky, the type of light crime caper at which he previously proved so adept with the likes of Out of Sight and the Oceans movies.
Channing Tatum is Jimmy Logan, a small-town former football star who now works hard to make ends meet for the sake of his daughter Sadie.
Sadie’s mother, and Jimmy’s ex, Bobbie-Jo (Katie Holmes) is shacked up with successful car salesman Moody Chapman (David Denman). Who apparently can’t drive stick.
Bobbie-Jo lets Jimmy know that she and Moody are planning to move away, which will make it harder for him to see Sadie.
To top it off, Jimmy then finds himself let go from his construction job.
It isn’t long before his brother Clyde’s (Adam Driver) warnings about the Logan family bad-luck curse start to ring true.
Jimmy decides to take matters into his own hands. Through his on-the-job knowledge of the venue, and with the help of Clyde and their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), he plans pull off a heist at the local speedway.
As part of Jimmy’s scheme, the Logans need an explosives expert. Unfortunately for them, the only man for the job is Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), a fake-salt sprinkling, boiled egg-scoffing, multi-tattooed live-wire.
There is a further hitch: Bang is currently, in his own words, in-car-cer-at-ed in the local penitentiary.
It’s up to Jimmy to work out a way to break Bang out of prison, do the job and sneak him back in again, whilst dealing with Bang’s ‘computer expert’ brothers (Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson) and a rapidly-diminishing timetable.
The whole enterprise is incredibly fun. The action zips along, with various cryptic scenes that will assuredly make sense via the film’s climactic heist, and a script dotted with joyful incongruity; witness the list of prisoner demands during a siege scene.
All of this plays along to a funky soundtrack courtesy of frequent Soderbergh collaborator David Holmes.
This may all sound like a retread of the Oceans movies but the Southern setting and deeper focus on the Logan family unit makes this feel more low-key and relatable.
Tatum hits the right notes of dumb and street-smart as Jimmy, and Driver is gloriously deadpan, but as anyone who has seen the trailer will know, this is Craig’s gig. His Joe Bang is one of those comic creations who will surely grace our screens again, be it through sequel or spin-off.
Sure, this doesn’t hit the dramatic heights of some of his earlier work, but this is Soderbergh at his most entertaining, and he is extremely good at what he does.
Welcome back sir.
Conor Brennan
Great stuff!