Logan Lucky
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Rebecca Blunt
Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston, Seth MacFarlane, Jim O’Heir, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid, Hilary Swank
Seen on: 18.9.2017
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Plot:
Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) just got fired. So instead of a regular income, he needs a different way to get some money. Fortunately he has a plan. Together with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and his sister Mellie (Riley Keough) they’re going to rob the NASCAR bets during a race. But first, they need somebody who knows explosives and there’s nobody more knowledgeable than Joe Bang (Daniel Craig). Fortunately, Joe is currently in prison. So they all have their work cut out for them.

Logan Lucky is very entertaining, albeit not particularly deep. It may think that it’s a little funnier than it is, but it is funny enough to make it absolutely enjoyable.

Maybe the most revolutionary thing about Logan Lucky is that the “stupid rednecks” (a damn classist trope) are actually smart. They may talk in thick Southern accents (that I found surprisingly easy to understand) and aren’t polished or suave (as heist film protagonists usually are), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t smart and don’t know how to pull their plans off.

Other than that there’s really nothing fresh or new about Logan Lucky. It’s an entertaining heist movie, following heist movie rules down to a T. But since those rules work and the film is often very funny, I’m not going to complain about it (I loved the George R.R. Martin dig, or the bear in the woods – those scenes had me in stitches).

I wish they could have done without the cripping up and actually cast a one-armed person in Driver’s role, and I found it absolutely annoying that everybody is heterosexually coupled at the end of the film. That was a little too neat for me.

It’s a film that can be taken at face value and that doesn’t seem to have much behind that face anyway. Nothing wrong with that either, as long as you don’t expect more of it. I was very much entertained by it in any case.

Summarizing: Shallow fun.