Logan Lucky (2017)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Trying to reverse a family curse, brothers Jimmy and Clyde Logan set out to execute an elaborate robbery during the legendary Coca-Cola 600 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
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A chicken-fried treat akin to Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run , with a little Blues Brothers tossed in, the heist comedy Logan Lucky (*** out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Thursday night) centers on a West Virginia group of accidental crooks and usual suspects who plan to plunder Charlotte Motor Speedway during a major NASCAR race.
Logan Lucky is a movie filled with so many Southern-fried yahoos, it makes the characters in Smokey and the Bandit look as cultured as those in Howards End by comparison.
It’ll never make us forget about Smokey and the Bandit, but not solely for the reason that Tatum is no Burt Reynolds.
If the “Oceans” series represented his updating of Kennedy-era Rat Pack swagger, “Logan Lucky” revives the irreverent, hell-raising outlaw vibe of “Smokey and the Bandit.”
He knows how to get at a $14 million NASCAR cash trove after a giant sinkhole opens beneath Charlotte's racetrack (which actually happened in 2010; the racetrack joked that in fixing it, they found Burt Reynolds' toupee from Stroker Ace, shot there).
There's Daniel Craig (aka Bond, James Bond) actually playing Joe Bang, a genius, good ol' boy safecracker in bleached blond hair and eerily reminiscent of Robert Shaw as the brilliant assassin in "From Russia With Love."
One of the many joys in Steven Soderbergh's breakneck-speed, Red-State-seeded heist comedy "Logan Lucky" has to be Daniel Craig's overt nod to 007's muscled, white-haired nemesis Red Grant, Robert Shaw's Soviet assassin from the James Bond classic "From Russia With Love."
But perhaps a better description would be that it’s a Southern-fried, larky take on Stanley Kubrick’s great 1956 racetrack robbery flick “The Killing.”
With its echoes of the three “Ocean’s” films, Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas,” which dramatized the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport reaping $6 million, and even as far back as Stanley Kubrick’s race-track robbery drama “The Killing” (1956), “Logan Lucky” is a hoot.
With its echoes of the three “Ocean’s” films, Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas,” which dramatized the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport reaping $6 million, and even as far back as Stanley Kubrick’s race-track robbery drama “The Killing” (1956), “Logan Lucky” is a hoot.
It has a homemade, gimcrack, screw-top quality that marks it as a pure product of the down-home Southern imagination, and the way that Soderbergh has directed the movie, rooting it in an authenticity of locale, manners, and economics, it could almost pass for a true-life crime drama, like the Lufthansa heist in “GoodFellas” (even though this one is all made up).
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What ensues is a playful, down-home take on “Ocean’s Eleven” that relies less on sleek gadgetry and sophisticated repartee than on cramped ductwork, pneumatic tubes and dim-witted, aw-shucks patois.
And now, he’s back on the bigger screen with Logan Lucky, a light, twangy Southern fried caper flick that’s just a hoot and a holler away from a full-on Ocean’s Eleven parody/apology/homage.
Something of a companion piece to Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven" but an antithesis of the shiny, high profile glam of that offering, "Logan Lucky" ends up on my list of favorite crime caper heist flicks and thus rates as a 7 out of 10.
El escritor, director y productor americano es responsable de darnos estupendos filmes como la trilogía de “Ocean’s Eleven”, “Traffic”, “Erin Brokovich”, “Magic Mike” y “Contagion”.
Working a script by rookie Rebecca Blunt, Soderbergh approaches Logan Lucky as a knucklehead version of his Ocean’s Eleven Vegas romps; the raceway caper is actually referred to within the movie as “Ocean’s 7-Eleven.”
That explains why Soderbergh, who directed “ Ocean’s Eleven ” (2001) and its two sequels, begins the latest movie with so sweaty a statement of intent: Channing Tatum, busy with his tools, under the hood of a truck.
Screenwriting credit goes to one Rebecca Blunt, largely believed to be pseudonym for a director who deserves to be given the Clockwork Orange treatment with a copy of his own The Limey .
Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director of Traffic (2000) and films as diverse as Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Kafka (1991), his two-part biopic Che (2008) and The Girlfriend Experience (2009), returns to features after a four year absence with a cool breeze of summertime sweetness called Logan Lucky.
Now four years may not seem like that long of a “retirement”—there are people with active careers who take that much time between projects—but for someone who had been averaging a film or two a year for more than a decade or so prior to his departure, there must have been some concern on his part about getting back into the groove again that not even the extensive work he did for cable television during that time (which included directing the acclaimed film “Behind the Candelabra” and every episode of “The Knick” as well as producing a number of series that included an adaptation of his film “The Girlfriend Experience”) could completely alleviate.
Keough’s a veteran of the Soderbergh canon, having led a show he produced, “The Girlfriend Experience” and aces the laid-back, fun-movie vibe.
Its sense of economic anxiety has more in common with Magic Mike and The Girlfriend Experience , two sharp stories about selling sex during a recession.
After all, he quietly shot two fantastic seasons of The Knick and was executive producer on The Girlfriend Experience and Red Oaks.
The Soderbergh canon is chock-full of creative left turns — genre trifles like Haywire sitting comfortably next to ambitious, confounding experiments like Che (if you sat through all of Che in theaters, this Bud’s for you) or The Girlfriend Experience.
To single out a mere eight of 28 film credits: There’s the indie film lodestar Sex, Lies, and Videotape; drug trade exposé Traffic; experimental head case Schizopolis; a hypochondriac’s anxious-sneeze confirmed in Contagion; mixed martial arts adrenaline shot Haywire; new-millennium Norma Rae Erin Brockovich; new-genre invention – hullo, male-stripper-meets-the-recession! – Magic Mike; and, oh yeah, only the most stylish crime caper ever made, Out of Sight.
Soderbergh can speak with authority on the subject: over nearly three decades, his films have ranged from eclectic indie projects (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble) to box office hits (Ocean's Eleven, Magic Mike).
In other words, anyone who’s seen one of those “Ocean’s” movies will feel right at home, especially if that one “Ocean’s” movie was the half-baked “Ocean’s Thirteen.”
As the sequels "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen" proved, however, it's not always a slam dunk in terms of creating good to great heist or crime caper films, although at least the mediocre entries make the better ones truly stand out.
The quirky brand of humor mingled with unique characters and oddball situations is just a stone’s throw away from the kind of material Joel & Ethan Coen love while echoing some of the elements Soderbergh previously toyed with in Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen.
Later, he takes a beating in a bar fight when an obnoxious Nascar empresario (Seth MacFarlane, who’s doing the worst London accent since Don Cheadle in Ocean's Thirteen ) insults his one-armed bartender brother (Adam Driver).
Soderbergh can speak with authority on the subject: over nearly three decades, his films have ranged from eclectic indie projects (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble) to box office hits (Ocean's Eleven, Magic Mike).
So, it’s a heist movie, something Soderbergh knows a thing or two about, having called the shots on Ocean’s 11 through 13, not to mention the classic Elmore Leonard adaptation, Out of Sight .
Soderbergh is one of the reigning masters of the heist picture: he did the " Ocean's Eleven " remake and its two sequels, plus " Out of Sight " and " The Underneath ."
To single out a mere eight of 28 film credits: There’s the indie film lodestar Sex, Lies, and Videotape; drug trade exposé Traffic; experimental head case Schizopolis; a hypochondriac’s anxious-sneeze confirmed in Contagion; mixed martial arts adrenaline shot Haywire; new-millennium Norma Rae Erin Brockovich; new-genre invention – hullo, male-stripper-meets-the-recession! – Magic Mike; and, oh yeah, only the most stylish crime caper ever made, Out of Sight.
Logan Lucky is close in tone to one of Soderbergh’s finest movies, Out of Sight (1998), adapted from material by the great Elmore Leonard.
While the caper aspect definitely invites that comparison, I found it also brought to mind 1998's Out of Sight, my favorite Soderbergh film, for both its inclusions of more middle-to-lower class criminal masterminds (some of whom are slightly lacking in the mind department) and its clever use of flashbacks.
Soderbergh can speak with authority on the subject: over nearly three decades, his films have ranged from eclectic indie projects (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble) to box office hits (Ocean's Eleven, Magic Mike).
It has a heist at its center, which relates it to his quite successful trio of Oceans films, but its setting is Appalachia—Boone County, West Virginia, and western North Carolina, specifically—and, in its interest in the details of lives lived paycheck to paycheck in regions of the country little-depicted in popular cinema, it is closer to something like Bubble (2005), shot in the Ohio River towns of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Belpre, Ohio, or Magic Mike (2012), with its early scenes of men at work laying Spanish tile in West Central Florida.
But Mr. Soderbergh’s class consciousness — something that has popped up often in his career, in “Erin Brockovich” and “The Girlfriend Experience,” in “Bubble” and, of course, in “Magic Mike” — is atmospheric rather than programmatic.
Soderbergh, who directed the Oceans 11 remakes, was in this area for his 2005 film, Bubble—one of the first shot-on-digital features.
Soderbergh is one of the reigning masters of the heist picture: he did the " Ocean's Eleven " remake and its two sequels, plus " Out of Sight " and " The Underneath ."
Skeptics note that Soderbergh himself has written a number of scripts over the course of his career, among them the ones for his first feature, Sex, Lies and Videotape , and his 2002 Solaris .
And the central comedy of Logan Lucky is in watching the little people get over on the big dog, more resourcefully than you thought possible—something of a manifestation of Soderbergh himself, who seems to favor people acting out against big systems (like Erin Brockovich ) because, in the context of the Hollywood system, he’s one of them.
To single out a mere eight of 28 film credits: There’s the indie film lodestar Sex, Lies, and Videotape; drug trade exposé Traffic; experimental head case Schizopolis; a hypochondriac’s anxious-sneeze confirmed in Contagion; mixed martial arts adrenaline shot Haywire; new-millennium Norma Rae Erin Brockovich; new-genre invention – hullo, male-stripper-meets-the-recession! – Magic Mike; and, oh yeah, only the most stylish crime caper ever made, Out of Sight.
Present, too, are the anxieties of working-class strivers fed up with an American dream that’s failed them, so throw in Erin Brockovich as well.
The director of Ocean’s Eleven, Sex, Lies and Videotapes and Erin Brockovich had technically retired after 2013 HBO movie Behind the Candelabra, but he couldn’t resist coming back.
The shooting style is closer to the compact feel of Erin Brockovich, with barely an extraneous insert.
But Mr. Soderbergh’s class consciousness — something that has popped up often in his career, in “Erin Brockovich” and “The Girlfriend Experience,” in “Bubble” and, of course, in “Magic Mike” — is atmospheric rather than programmatic.
El escritor, director y productor americano es responsable de darnos estupendos filmes como la trilogía de “Ocean’s Eleven”, “Traffic”, “Erin Brokovich”, “Magic Mike” y “Contagion”.
Las pocas veces que el cineasta, que se ganó el Oscar por su dirección de “Traffic" y lanzó el movimiento del cine independiente en los noventa con “Sex, Lies and Videotape”, ha trabajado en este género se ha especializado en la comedia del absurdo (“The Informant”) o con fusiones con otros géneros como son el caso de “Ocean’s 11” y sus dos secuelas.
Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director of Traffic (2000) and films as diverse as Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Kafka (1991), his two-part biopic Che (2008) and The Girlfriend Experience (2009), returns to features after a four year absence with a cool breeze of summertime sweetness called Logan Lucky.
To single out a mere eight of 28 film credits: There’s the indie film lodestar Sex, Lies, and Videotape; drug trade exposé Traffic; experimental head case Schizopolis; a hypochondriac’s anxious-sneeze confirmed in Contagion; mixed martial arts adrenaline shot Haywire; new-millennium Norma Rae Erin Brockovich; new-genre invention – hullo, male-stripper-meets-the-recession! – Magic Mike; and, oh yeah, only the most stylish crime caper ever made, Out of Sight.
The post-recession economic concerns of Magic Mike made it more than “just” a male stripper movie; Logan Lucky is filled with the kind of “white working class” folks that we’re told swung this election, complete with occasional references to how Jimmy and his brother Clyde (Adam Driver, doing a Tim Blake Nelson dialect) “used to work the mines.”
(He also had a hand in both Magic Mike movies, but let’s move on).
El escritor, director y productor americano es responsable de darnos estupendos filmes como la trilogía de “Ocean’s Eleven”, “Traffic”, “Erin Brokovich”, “Magic Mike” y “Contagion”.
Most of the lead performers are easygoing: Tatum’s Jimmy is a hop and a step removed from the actor’s work in Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, a down-home boy possessed of a quiet brand of confidence.
Indeed, I can't think of a more straightforward way to describe the new film than as the cross between Ocean's Eleven and Magic Mike , dressed up with a laid-back, summery sense of regionalism that has no particular forerunner in Soderbergh's career.
In terms of milieu, it overlaps with the two Magic Mike outings, that being the working-class South (Soderbergh hails from Georgia and Louisiana, it should be remembered), and it gives off the same sort of gently rollicking good-time vibe.
En esta ocasión esa trama es filtrada a través de un sentido del humor que se ha visto en pantalla en las mejores comedias de los hermanos Coen (“Raising Arizona”, “Fargo”, “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?”) Como cineasta Soderbergh es demasiado metódico y obsesivo para dejar que los elementos más ridículos de su película empujen a sus personajes hacia la caricatura.
The characters' Southern drawl recalls some of the Coen brothers' funniest films ( Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where Art Thou? , etc.), and their criminal cleverness is reminiscent of some of Quentin Tarantino's work.
Soderbergh seems to be aiming for the kind of knockabout kookiness of the Coen Brothers’ best films (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), but Logan Lucky is closer to the sneering attitude that slips into the worst of their work (Burn After Reading; O Brother, Where Art Thou?).
And the deadpan Driver stands out in the cast, sort of a cracker caricature of Nicolas Cage’s hero in “Raising Arizona.”
Soderbergh seems to be aiming for the kind of knockabout kookiness of the Coen Brothers’ best films (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), but Logan Lucky is closer to the sneering attitude that slips into the worst of their work (Burn After Reading; O Brother, Where Art Thou?).
Lo primero que me vino a la mente luego de verla, es que Logan Lucky es “Ocean’s Eleven”, pero al estilo de un filme de los hermanos Coen (“No Country for Old Men”, “Inside Llewyn Davis”).
The late, great Robert Altman was known for such putative toss-offs (think California Split or The Long Goodbye) that play like a party yet still linger in the memory.
The late, great Robert Altman was known for such putative toss-offs (think California Split or The Long Goodbye) that play like a party yet still linger in the memory.
In fact, “Logan Lucky” reminded me most of Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado,” in which the director basically just re-made his immortal “Rio Bravo” a few years later because it was a good story he felt like telling again.
In fact, “Logan Lucky” reminded me most of Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado,” in which the director basically just re-made his immortal “Rio Bravo” a few years later because it was a good story he felt like telling again.
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His decision might seem counterintuitive, as the heist movie is classically an opportunity to show off directorial chops—see, for instance, the first half of Bertrand Bonello’s lubricious, machine-tooled Nocturama (2016), which, in turn, invokes the spirit of Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955).
Those locals who lamented that 1990’s Days of Thunder transposed the word “Charlotte” over an image of a good ol' boy drinking out of a Mason jar while standing in front of a dilapidated barn will be further disheartened with the representation here.