Logan Lucky: When the Rubber Meets the Middle of the Road
Steven Soderbergh has officially come out of his self-imposed film retirement to deliver the heist comedy Logan Lucky. Channing Tatum stars as Jimmy Logan, a once-upon-a-time high-school football all-star that shares a streak of bad luck with his Iraq War vet brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and with some help from Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), they plan a heist to liberate themselves of this “Logan Curse.” The story itself is simple enough, but how unique can this heist film be, really? We saw earlier this summer that the music-motivated editing decisions in Baby Driver can spice up the genre and make a (nearly) tired genre picture worth watching.
For starters, this movie comes from a singular point of view. Soderbergh knows how to work a camera not only to just get a provocative shot, but to move the story along. If you watch a vanilla film that doesn’t offer anything worth noting, it’s easy to wonder why that story had to be made into a movie rather than a short story or a novel. A director like Soderbergh (or Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan, for that matter) shows more than why this story needs to be told: these auteurs create movies to show why their takes are the ones that matter. Logan Lucky depicts the working class without a shadow of the too-familiar condescending tone or the sinful I-think-I-know-what-being-poor-looks-like production design. There’s Carhart, camo shorts, construction boots, Ford hats and farmer’s tans all over the place, but they don’t take part in the gags: Chalk that up to the characters.
Their brotherhood is felt rather than spoken, saving us the well-worn trope of characters explaining to their family that they’re family, indeed.
Rebecca Blunt’s screenplay astutely places its effort into steeping the audience in the world of the characters by focusing on character moments. The fact that this first-time screenwriter may or may not exist adds to the intrigue of this movie, but the motivation for the heist is laid out perfectly clear in the first ten minutes. It’s about an hour or so before the actual heist begins, but that time is spent with Tatum and Driver’s Southern drawl punctuated by their charm and chemistry. Their brotherhood is felt rather than spoken, saving us the well-worn trope of characters explaining to their family that they’re family, indeed. Rather than an Aaron Sorkin screenplay where all the characters are written as if they’re all dry, sardonic ivy-league grads, “Blunt” writes her characters as if they’re actual working-class people without leaning exclusively on dim-witted Southerner stereotypes to get a laugh or two out of you. Logan Lucky may not be gut-busting, but the chuckles certainly come from the heart.
The highest praise is in order for the show-stopping performance of Craig as Joe Bang. Who would’ve thought that the slick-as-oil James Bond could make you believe he’s actually from the southern half of the US? By the time Joe Bang gives the Logan brothers a lesson in chemistry, you’re all in on this cast. Although a sequel would be milking too much out of this contained auteur-driven film, it’s easy to yearn for more time with all of these characters because of how down-to-earth but funny they are. The comedy isn’t slapstick or dependent on pop culture references (but keep your eye out for a Game of Thrones nod) but it reminds you of airtight situations your friends have been in that pressured a laugh out of you.
What holds this movie back is its runtime. The fourth act, without spoiling it, isn’t necessarily unnecessary, but it didn’t need to be twenty minutes long. A glorified cameo could’ve been waived to keep the audience from itching to get out of their seats. At that point, the film loses its sharp punch and just falls silent without anything else to say. Logan Lucky may clock in at a typical two hours, but you feel those last minutes drag. What were character moments are substituted for monotonous notes that aren’t worth repeating, causing the payoff to go stale before it even arrives. Maybe next time around, the “Blunt”-Soderbergh pair can come together to create a tighter finish for their heist.
Jeffrey Martin is The Collective’s cinema critic and you can follow him on Twitter at @jeffthemartin.
