Logan Lucky

That other Steven something-burg is back in his full-on comfort zone. Comedy crime capers!

Logan Lucky is Steven Soderbergh’s latest offering, following Jimmy Logan, a West Virginian blue-collar worker who, when let go from his job decides to rob Charlotte Motor Speedway with his brother and sister along with an explosives expert and his two brothers.

The Logan Bros, played by two of my favourite young actors of the moment.

Soderbergh is one of those artists I’d describe as a chameleon. He always something a little different and interesting and hard to define. Even when he fails you can’t tell me it’s not at least cool to witness.

Here we get a film drastically different from its trailer which demonstrated wacky hijinks and slapstick. While we do get helpings of those elements, we also get a soberly executed heist film. It calls this the Inherent Vice effect. Go back and watch the trailer for Inherent Vice and tell me that was not a misleading piece of advertising.

Ol’ Steve’s audacity has its moments in Logan Lucky. For one thing, he really cuts the fat off the runtime efficiently without ever skimping on the provision of motives or set-up. It tried to do this but ended up confusing me.

By the end of Logan Lucky, I was confused, but that’s par for the course of a good heist film upon first viewing.

Some experimentation really doesn’t pay off, however. Some humour feels a bit forced and the film makes a couple of bizarre tangents which I didn’t get. I think the filmmakers were going for a Coen Bros vibe, but it didn’t gel with the rest of the movie.

Channing Tatum and Adam Driver are the Logan Brothers. They are endlessly charming in their hill-billy smarts.

Seth Macfarlane is surprisingly not that annoying as an idiotic Nascar driver, though his role is kind of odd in the narrative.

The stealer of the show is Daniel Craig as their explosive expert convict. His performance reminds us of the man’s range as an actor, giving us an intimidating redneck you’d forget was British.

I kinda like Logan Lucky. It made me laugh, left me a little confused and reminded me that films are a playground.

Recommended Scenario: If you want a cool heist film and Baby Driver is not available.