Imagine, if you will, a redneck Ocean's Eleven. That would be the elevator pitch for Logan Lucky, the latest film directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Magic Mike, Haywire) from a screenplay by first-time writer, Rebecca Blunt.
Jimmy Logan is let go from his job. Frustrated, he sees a way to improve his lot: by robbing the vault of one of the biggest NASCAR events of the year. Aided by his one-armed veteran bartender brother Clyde and a consummate safecracker who is currently behind bars, Jimmy hatches a plan to break the bank.
It's a film brimful of charm and wit. Channing Tatum makes for an affable, likeable presence as Jimmy. You get behind him wanting to make a better life for himself and you want him to get away with this harebrained scheme. Providing a nice counterbalance, Adam Driver is grounded and realistic (pessimistic?) as the superstitious Clyde, obsessed with the idea of 'the Logan curse'. Daniel Craig plays Joe, the safecracker, with a mixture of eccentricity and vigour; if you're only used to him being Bond, this will be a very different performance!
Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson provide lunkheaded comic relief as Joe's dimwatt brothers Fish and Sam. There's also a fantastically funny supporting turn by Dwight Yoakam as Warden Burns, desperately trying to stop any outside interference at the prison with a constant refrain of 'we don't have [insert catastrophe] here'. The only bit of casting that doesn't work for me is an unrecognisable Seth MacFarlane as a strikingly unfunny douchebag energy-drink merchant.
But this isn't just a Boys' Own adventure: there are lovely turns by Riley Keogh as Jimmy and Clyde's sister Mellie (a hairdresser who knows a thing or two about cars); Katie Holmes, who plays Jimmy's ex-wife Bobbie Jo; Katherine Waterston as Sylvia, a local nurse who gets involved with Jimmy; Farrah Mackenzie who plays Jimmy and Bobbie Jo's beauty-pageant-obsessed daughter Sadie (who provides an unexpectedly poignant version of John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads') and Hilary Swank as Special Agent Sarah Grayson, assigned to investigate how the heist was done.
The actual heist itself is high octane and thrilling- and skilfully shot. The film is also funny. Like, really funny. But clever funny. There's a great bit during the heist where Joe painstakingly explains exactly how the explosive is going to work (including equations). Similarly, a prison hostage situation escalates over the availability of George R.R. Martin's books. There is some comedy mined from Southern stereotypes but it's few and far between.
I saw this on a night when I needed a bit of escapism. I wanted something to make me laugh and chill me out. Logan Lucky delivered that perfectly. A lot of fun.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tez
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