Stephen Soderbergh’s retirement didn’t last very long, which is rather fortunate given how great Logan Lucky (now out on iTunes and amazon), the first film he’d directed since 2013’s Behind the Candelabra, turned out. A funny heist film filled with great dialogue and memorable characters, Logan Lucky deserved a much better fate at the box office than it received, and does a better job of channeling the vibe of his version of Ocean’s Eleven than that film’s sequel did. (I never even bothered with Thirteen.)
Channing Tatum, who was so good in a limited role in last year’s Hail Caesar, stars as Jimmy Logan, who works at a mine in West Virginia but loses his job just after the movie starts. Jimmy has a daughter, Sadie, who lives with her now remarried mother Bobbie Jo (a very gaunt Katie Holmes) but may move out of state to follow Bobbie Jo’s wealthy husband to his new job. Jimmy hatches a plan to rob the Charlotte Speedway, which apparently is right over the mine – I haven’t figured out the geography on this one either, other than that the mine must be several times longer than the Large Hadron Collider – in an elaborate scheme involving his one-armed brother, Clyde (Adam Driver); the Logans’ younger sister, hairstylist Mellie (Riley Keough); a currently in-car-cer-rate-ted explosives expert named, of course, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig); Joe’s two idiot brothers; and a few assists from other assorted friends and family members.
The plot itself is sort of wonderfully ridiculous, the kind of perfect crime that could never be that perfect in the physical universe but comes off almost charming in its Rube Goldberg sort of perfection. It’s the dialogue and the performances, especially those of Tatum and Craig, that really carry the film off. Craig is an absolute riot in the role, not quite mad bomber, but definitely a bomber and also a bit mad, smart (especially compared to his two idiot brothers, played by the sons of Brendan Gleeson and Dennis Quaid), and sometimes amusingly self-effacing. Tatum brings the charm, as he always does, but he gives Jimmy a strong resolve and belief that the plan will work, even when obstacles arise or the people around him try to convince him that it won’t. He’s somewhat used to people assuming he’s an idiot, even though he’s not one, and he seems to just play the role that’s expected of him so that one day he can take advantage of everyone’s ignorance. Dwight Yoakam excels as the fatuous prison warden who repeatedly denies that there’s anything wrong at his facility; Hilary Swank is a bit over the top as the FBI agent assigned to the case, although I thought her near-monotone delivery quickly established her character as the one person the Logan boys might have to worry about.
Not all the performances are so great, however. Driver’s attempt to do some sort of backwoods accent is distractingly bad, not least because he speaks … so … slowly … that you want to push him from the back so he gets to the end of his sentence sooner. (It’s also a bit hard to see how he and Tatum could ever come from the same gene pool.) And Seth McFarlane appears as the obnoxious (duh), unnecessarily British entrepreneur Max Chilblain, whose every word is just as painful as his surname implies, and who is wearing a dark wig of Jheri curls because I have no idea why I’m even talking about this guy. Casting him was a terrible decision and he ruins every scene he’s in.
Soderbergh and the pseudonymous writer Rebecca Blunt (likely Soderbergh’s wife, Jules Asner) keeps the pace moving between action and dialogue, never lingering too long on a scene, never worrying about establishing a Big Moment*, and infusing everything with humor. Just about every scene involving Joe Bang is funny, as are several of the scenes during and while the Logans break Bang out of prison (only to plan to return him to the facility before the day is out in a scheme within the scheme). There’s some humor at the Bang brothers’ – yeah, I know – expense, as well as a bit of a “that’s not funny, but I’m still laughing” moment involving Clyde’s prosthetic arm.
*Okay, the pageant scene near the end of the movie is probably too sentimental by half; I gave it a pass because it ties back to the scene that opens the film, and because Jimmy’s daughter is the primary reason he concocts this plan in the first place.
Logan Lucky died on the vine in theaters, despite glowing reviews and plenty of big names in the cast; it may just have been released at the wrong time, as late July is not a big movie-going time of year and this wasn’t an action flick or a blockbuster. It moves like very few movies I watched this year moved, and manages to fulfill its mission without gratuitous sex or violence, either. I suspect it’ll end up on my top 10 for 2017, or at least very close to it, whenever I end up compiling one.
I agree with you, Keith. This was a great movie. One of the surprises of the year. I think I figured out the mine situation and wanted to see if I got it right, or just missed something. It’s never stated where the mine is located. So from what I gathered, Tatum’s character lives in WV, but works in the mine located close to the Charlotte Motor Speedway and just drives there from WV to work.
Is this the same Josh who just said he was off to the greener pastures of Infowars?
Nope, different emails & IP addresses.
Ah, ok. Because that would be mildly…inconsistent. Like the episode of Seinfeld where George acts like he didn’t quit his job.
Great movie, glad you liked it, or more accurately found it. I share your confusion on why it didn’t end up doing better.
Someone pitched it to me as ‘blue-collar Ocean’s 11’ which is fairly accurate. I did love that, with the exception of the two dumb brothers, everyone involved in the scheme is actually highly competent at pulling off this caper.
Given the way it ended I assume there may be a sequel and would gladly watch it. I imagine there’s more to work with here than Ocean’s 12.
I liked it too, but not as much.
Funny you praise it for the pacing, where I would have said that it was held back from being great by being a little too slow and unfocused. I like Katherine Waterston, for example, but I kept waiting for her character to have a reason to be in the film and it never happened; she’s just a distraction, like a remnant of a subplot from an older version of the script that got incompletely cut away. I’ve never liked McFarlane, but at least his character had some plot-relevance. (Also, Riley Keough is becoming a star.)
btw in spite of what has been said here, I don’t think it was a mine. I thought it was made clear he was working on a construction project under the Speedway.
If I remember correctly, Jimmy isn’t a coal miner. He’s a construction worker hence the work going on at the race track. But yes the movie is fantastic, and it’s lack of success was disappointing to say the least.
I could have sworn I heard Jerry Gergich call it a mine at some point. Maybe that was just a slangy reference to the tunnel?
Yeah, I understood it to be a construction project too.
The Game of Thrones conversation was easily the funniest dialogue I’ve seen in a movie in a while. It’s hard to make a pop culture reference pop like that, but holy cow was that funny.
Also, how did Logan, Lucky, and Logan Lucky all come out in the same year?
Agreed. Laugh out loud funny, especially when he tries to explain how the former inmates got their information on books that didn’t exist.
One of the things that I loved the most about Logan Lucky was that it was the third of four films I’ve seen this year to use John Denver music in a prominent fashion. (Free Fire, Alien: Covenant and Kingsman: The Golden Circle being the others.)
I don’t share you opinions about MacFarlane, as I’m a fan of his. His character was obviously meant to be annoying and therefore the target for misfortune. I also thought he was Australian.
Ocean’s Thirteen is much, much better than Ocean’s Twelve, though not as good as Ocean’s Eleven, if you’re ever curious. I mean, it’s at the very least pretty entertaining and much more in the vain of Eleven.
My favorite scene was Dwight Yoakam’s warden negotiating with the inmates over the Song of Fire and Ice books and using Wikipedia to explain that the show had surpassed the books.
My understanding is that Soderbergh took a stab at going outside the typical Hollywood marketing system, hoping that name recognition and positive word of mouth would drive audience interest. Marketing budgets for Hollywood films nowadays can approach or even equal production budgets, which adds an additional burden to perform, particularly for original properties that don’t have built-in hype. So, instead, Soderbergh handled much of the work himself and hired his own distribution team with a far more limited budget. It didn’t work, which is really too bad. I agree that it is an underrated movie. Despite the presence of Macfarlane, who was awful. I liked Driver, even though his accent was clearly a “choice”.
The Speedway was having an issue with sinkholes since it was built atop an old landfill. So they hired folks with mine expertise to help tunnel under and shore up the track and infield area. The mine work exposed the pneumatic tube system that then is at the core of the movie.
I do have a question. Is the FBI agent still on to them at the bar at the end? Or is she so impressed that she’s sort of paying homage?
I do have a question. Is the FBI agent still on to them at the bar at the end? Or is she so impressed that she’s sort of paying homage?
I like that this isn’t clear. It seems more likely it’s the former, but the script definitely leaves you a bit hanging, and I think that’s a perfect ending.