Movie Review: Logan Lucky

Director Steven Soderbergh announced a few years ago that he was to retire from making feature films. His reasoning was simply burn-out. During his hiatus he did re-edits of famous movies and did some experimental work in television as well as some off-Broadway plays. His commercial success over the years with Erin Brockovich and Ocean's 11 was well established but he also won the Oscar for directing Traffic. So what drew the director back? Apparently, it was the script Logan Lucky from Rebecca Blunt who Hollywood Reporter says does not exist. It could be Soderbergh himself, his wife or neither.

Logan Lucky is at its heart a heist movie centered on NASCAR with Soderbergh acting as director, cinematographer and editor. It is an ensemble cast of Hollywood elite. Comparisons to Ocean's 11 are inevitable but the story is less glamorous and more redneck as it follows some West Virginia losers in their quest to rob a NASCAR race of millions. Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, a man who has lost his job and custody of his child to ex-wife played by Katie Holmes. Consoling himself at a bar with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), an Iraq War very with a prosthetic limb, they have a run in with British NASCAR driver played by an almost unrecognizable Seth MacFarlane.

From this encounter, they decide to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Memorial Weekend of the Coca Cola 600. Jimmy knows something of the track's internal workings because he was involved in building it. The two brothers along with their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) enlist the help of safecracker Joe Bang played by scene stealer Daniel Craig. There is little doubt that come Oscar time, Craig should be considered for best support actor. The performance is that...bang on.

The rest of the story is a rollicking, full of twists, good times movie and is funny, fast paced despite the two hour running time. There some cameos of some NASCAR drivers for sharp eyed fans. The daughter of Jimmy Logan is played by Farrah MacKenzie and she is one to watch in the future. Hillary Swank plays an FBI agent on the case of this down south robbery but she can't convince anyone of her theory. It is all very clever but not in the way more sophisticated or glamorous heist movies of the past. Only a few strands in the fabric at the very end keep the movie from flawless. However, the humour in the story, the ensemble cast and the direction make this movie and original summer hit.