Movie Review: Crime Pays in the Cheap, Cheerful and Charming “Logan Lucky”

The cheerfully dispensable Logan Lucky heralds the return of Steven Soderbergh, goofball.

Steven Soderbergh has ended his retirement from cinema, and the eyes of the film community are on him. Yet, instead of delivering a grand opus to silence his critics and prove he still has something to say, he’s given us a bit of fun, frivolous BS that’s designed for easy disposal.

In fact, the snappily-edited and uber-efficient working-class caper Logan Lucky is so ephemeral, its screenwriter may not even exist.

Scenes never run too long. Characters never say too much. A deep dive for more meaning will only result in a head injury on the bottom of its empty metaphorical pool. However, it’s smart, sharp and as much a feat of style as its moneyed ancestor, Ocean’s Eleven.

It’s a movie. That’s all we ever wanted Stevie to make.

Soderbergh’s unexpected late-period muse Channing Tatum stars as Jimmy Logan, an unlucky North Carolinian with a busted leg and zero prospects. Fired from his job repairing the underground pipes of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, he pitches a get-rich-quick-ish scheme to his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who is himself missing a forearm from a stint in Iraq.

Together, with the help of their hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough) and incarcerated explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), they’ll stage a heist during a NASCAR race, setting themselves up for life with the cash being pumped through the Speedway’s tunnel-system. Hijinks ensue, a prison riot breaks out, a hand goes missing, and then Hillary Swank’s FBI agent winds up on the case.

The flick is purportedly written by ‘Rebecca Blunt’, which sources suggest is either a pen-name for Soderbergh, or that of his wife, Jules Asner. (The director denies it, but this certainly wouldn’t be a first for their household: Soderbergh works as cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter Andrews and edits as Mary Ann Bernard.) Someone deserves credit for their screenwriting gift of twirling endearing and unpretentious characters around a narratively knotty adventure. Apologies Ms. Blunt if you are indeed real (and just a suspiciously vacant Twitterer). 

It amounts to what Soderbergh does best (or what he does best lately): crisp, fat-free genre exercises, just like Contagion (disaster), Haywire (assassin) and Side Effects (Hitchcock). However, unlike the sleek Ocean’s trilogy (heist), Logan Lucky traffics in farce, with Tatum and Driver’s wonderfully-stunned straight men opposite Craig’s kook. (Driver is on a particularly affable streak.) The doll-eyed Farrah Mackenzie, as Jimmy’s daughter Sadie, steals every scene. Riley Keough has less to do, but Mellie is a sweet twist on her manipulative role in American Honey. Only Seth MacFarlane, as a British millionaire who somehow wandered off the set of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” music video, overplays his hand.

Logan Lucky ultimately feels like one of the Coen brothers’ breezier efforts (Raising Arizona, without the apocalyptic biker, or Burn After Reading, without the extreme nihilistic violence). It aims to misdirect and succeeds with some crafty, cinematic sleight of hand. And though it may be tempting to imprint on the picture some commentary about America’s new-poor, the way in which red state residents are underestimated, or the commercialised patriotism peddled by NASCAR, maybe don’t. Movies—and the mysterious, elusive directors behind them—don’t have to act ‘important’ to give you a good ride.

4/5

In cinemas August 17. Rated M for coarse language.

Photo: Bleeker Street