Logan Lucky is a Triumph
Coming back from “retirement” (once more), Steven Soderbergh directs one of his greatest achievements of his illustrious career — a heist film that rivals his re-interpretation of Ocean’s Eleven with colorful characters and a witty script. Brothers Jimmy (Channing Tatum) and Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) are, according to his Clyde, cursed. Jimmy just lost his job, and might even lose seeing his daughter as his ex (Katie Holmes) will move away as her husband (David Denman) opens a new car dealership. Jimmy sets-up an elaborate plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway’s vault with the help of convicted felon Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), even though he is “in-car-ce-ra-ted”.
Every sequence in Logan Lucky, beautifully shot by Soderbergh himself as Peter Andrews(before he went in an iPhone craze with Unsane and High Flying Bird) is smart comedy, written to near-perfection. The best part of the film is, obviously, Daniel Craig’s near-psychopathic turn as convicted felon JOE BANG. A great scene involving his character is when he makes a bomb involving “fake salt”, gummy bears and bleach pens, wrapped up in a plastic bag and then tries to explain the Logan brothers how thatsaid bomb made out of normal materials will work. It’s great comedy but the comedy is enhanced by the fantastic performances of Driver, Tatum and Craig. Every scene that Craig is in is an absolute riot and you can tell that he had tons of fun making the film and playing the role of Joe Bang. His brothers, Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson) are also hilarious, as equally hilarious as Joe himself. Every time Jimmy would argue with FISH BANG (good lord lol) and Sam, I would laugh out loud. It’s the simple things that made Logan Lucky highly entertaining, and its fantastic leads. I particularly loved Adam Driver’s Clyde as his obsession with his prosthetic hand overshadows his personality. When his arm gets sucked in a vacuum during the robbery, and all he could think about is his arm being retreived and can’t think about anything else which results in a fight with the bang brothers, I laughed my socks off. Every single scene in Logan Lucky is pure comedy, which is why the film works as well as you’d think.
The cast is star-studded, yes, but there are many unnecessary characters that add nothing to the film. As much as I thought Seth MacFarlane’s character was pretty funny and he nails the impression of a cocky, egotistical british promoter well, but his character doesn’t add anything to the film. The same goes with Sebastian Stan, Hillary Swank and Katherine Waterston (until she gets romantically involved with Jimmy at the end of the movie). Stan plays a racer with a strict, healthy diet, who crashes his car after drinking MacFarlane’s energy drink. Ok, who cares? Hillary Swank plays an FBI agent who wants to track down and arrest the Logans, but their alibis are too airtight and their plan is way too perfect and elaborate for her to make a move. If they removed her character and skipped right to the reveal of Jimmy’s plan, you would save at least 30 minutes of unnecessary filler and an overlong epilogue that doesn’t need to extend itself.
Aside from that, Logan Lucky is a triumph in every single sense of the word. Its sumptuous cinematography, alongside a kickass soundtrack, a witty and quirky script that harkens back to the days in which Soderbergh made fantastic comedies like Ocean’s Eleven or The Informant. It also helps to have a star-studded cast that is brilliantly directed by Soderbergh to bring out incredible acting and a career-best performance from Daniel Craig (yes, better than James Bond). Don’t be fooled by some of the bad reviews and see Logan Lucky if you haven’t. You won’t regret it.
✯✯✯✯½
