Title – Logan Lucky (2017)

Director – Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight)

Cast – Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Farrah Mackenzie, Seth MacFarlane, Hilary Swank, Jack Quaid, Dwight Yoakam

Plot – North Carolina natives and hard done by brothers Jimmy (Tatum) and Clyde Logan (Driver) set about organising a plan and a crew to help them rob a local speedway on the day of one of their biggest race meets.

“This kind of stuff don’t happen to normal folk”

Review by Eddie on 22/08/2017

In 2001 polarising director Steven Soderbergh unleashed the A-list filled heist caper Ocean’s Eleven into the marketplace.

A fun, fast and knowingly self-aware experience that spawned a rather forgettable trilogy, if Ocean’s Eleven was Soderbergh’s Rolls Royce heist caper, Logan Lucky is his billy-kart redneck version, filled with just as many A-listers as his George Clooney lead feature’s and in many ways a film just as enjoyable as his 2001 film, even if it’s unlikely to ever be remembered by many in the years to come.

Coming out of a retirement that never felt like the real deal, what exactly possessed Soderbergh to return to Hollywood and recruit one of his as per usual star studded cast’s for a crime comedy set in the Deep South and centred on robbing a Nascar speedway we will never know and while Logan Lucky won’t ever be regarded as a classic or even a member of the director’s best works, it’s unlikely that there’d be many that wouldn’t find themselves having a great time with the seemingly cursed Logan family and their quest to strike it rich.

Capturing the feels, vibes and small little eccentricities of the Deep South, Soderbergh does a great job of setting up the time and place that sees Channing Tatum’s divorced ex-football protégée Jimmy team up with his one armed Iraq veteran brother Clyde, played by Adam Driver and his hairdressing, car loving sister Mellie played by Riley Keough to rob the local Charlotte Motor Speedway and strike it rich, as the family recruit a rag-tag bunch of fellow locals that includes Daniel Craig’s explosive loving and incarcerated Joe Bang and his two dim-witted brothers.

It’s a motley crew and Soderbergh and his actors have a blast bringing them to life with everything played straight, making the films few big laugh sequences really stick (a scene involving a giant vacuum will have you in stiches), even if it at times feels like Soderbergh could’ve amped up the slapstick variety of comedy a little bit as the heist gets into full swing.

Despite the film arguably not making the most of its comedic potential at times, it’s always fantastic seeing such a capable collection of actors having such a good time and with the likes of a hamming it up Seth MacFarlane and bit parts from Katie Holmes and Hilary Swank, it’s hard not to enjoy Soderbergh’s big screen return, that really is unlike anything we’ve seen before and offers a fresh take on the well-worn dumb criminals trying to make it rich sub-genre.

Final Say –

Whilst forgettable in the long run and highly unbelievable, Logan Lucky is a smartly attuned heist caper that features a willing and on-song cast of professionals who help bring this redneck crime comedy to life and while his not breaking any new ground, its good if these are the type of film’s Soderbergh’s making while back in the Hollywood fray, films only he wants to make, like no one else can do.

3 ½ unpublished Game of Thrones books out of 5