Logan Lucky
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Rebecca Blunt
Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson, Seth MacFarlane, Hilary Swank, Katie Holmes, Dwight Yoakam, Katherine Waterston, David Denman, Sebastian Stan, Jon Eyez, Jim O'Heir, Rebecca Koon, Deneen Tyler, Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon
Comedy/Crime/Drama - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 17 Aug 2017
Written by: Rebecca Blunt
Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson, Seth MacFarlane, Hilary Swank, Katie Holmes, Dwight Yoakam, Katherine Waterston, David Denman, Sebastian Stan, Jon Eyez, Jim O'Heir, Rebecca Koon, Deneen Tyler, Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon
Comedy/Crime/Drama - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 17 Aug 2017
I will be the first one to nod my head there is plenty about the American South to poke fun at. Incomprehensible dialects, watery beer, and a fondness for the Confederate flag are just a starting point. Perhaps the biggest head scratcher about Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky, a comedic heist about robbing a racetrack during a NASCAR race, is whether or not we are laughing at the absurdism of the story and its circumstances, or straight up laughing at the characters. Your opinion probably depends on where you’re from and your familiarity with the South, but there are points I am sure cross the line into mockery.
I’m not pointing fingers and judging Soderbergh and first-time screenwriter Rebecca Blunt. There are plenty of films out there which make fun of Yankees, California hippies, and Northwest coffee snobs. You want to craft jokes about Americans as a whole? Have at it. But be honest about it. I have a hunch neither Channing Tatum nor Adam Driver will admit the extra drawl they slather on top of their already over drawn talk is nothing more than funny voices. Besides, most of the film takes place in West Virginia, a mid-Atlantic Appalachian state; hard to call it the South.
I’m not pointing fingers and judging Soderbergh and first-time screenwriter Rebecca Blunt. There are plenty of films out there which make fun of Yankees, California hippies, and Northwest coffee snobs. You want to craft jokes about Americans as a whole? Have at it. But be honest about it. I have a hunch neither Channing Tatum nor Adam Driver will admit the extra drawl they slather on top of their already over drawn talk is nothing more than funny voices. Besides, most of the film takes place in West Virginia, a mid-Atlantic Appalachian state; hard to call it the South.
They’re playing horseshoes with toilet bowl rings though! This has got to cultural mockery…not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, one of the guys tossing the toilet ring claims, “I know everything there is to know about computers; all the Twitters.” Even the banjo boy from Deliverance could recognize the flaw in that sentence. Soderbergh doesn’t mock NASCAR though. If folks were honest in opinion polls, NASCAR would probably outpace Evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism for which organization has the most devout congregation. The NASCAR race is mostly ignored and used as atmospherics most likely to avoid any accusations the director, mostly known in cinematic circles for Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Traffic and known in the South for Magic Mike, would dare make fun of the sacred oval track deity.
Logan Lucky doesn’t break any new ground when it comes to the caper. Most of the film is planning and inexplicable movements which only make sense later. Soderbergh keeps the audience in the dark about how Logan (Tatum, Hail, Caesar!) and his bumbling crew attempts to rob the racetrack in broad daylight on the busiest day of the year. This ensures interest and maybe a couple “ah-ha” moments. The film is more interested in its characters’ idiosyncrasies.
Logan’s daughter is a beauty pageant fanatic who can also hand her dad any tool he asks for while they talk about John Denver. Logan’s brother (Adam Driver, Silence) has only one hand, a recurring feature, and pronounces the vegetable “Ko-lee-flower”, but he instinctively knows to make a Molotov cocktail and torch the guy’s car when Logan gets in a bar fight. Katie Holmes (Woman in Gold), an odd casting choice as Logan’s ex-wife, re-married the most pompous, money-flaunting car salesman in the world, but she still slyly admires Logan’s salt of the Earth demeanor and ‘Aw shucks’ attitude the script ensures we understand. Logan may be planning a felony and setting up long-term prison sentences for himself and his family, but who cares, he’s such a good guy who loves his daughter.
Soderbergh has one of the most diverse filmographies in Hollywood, but Logan Lucky most closely resembles his Ocean’s Eleven remake. Bring together disparate figures, have them bicker out a plan, assign everybody one or two distinguishing characteristics, and voila, a mostly enjoyable, non-threatening and none too challenging weekend matinee feature is born. Logan says, “We West Virginians are a proud folk.” They’re not too proud to conspire and steal, but seriously, anyone who says “Ko-lee-flower” and “knows all the Twitters” can’t be all bad.
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