Logan Lucky
In which West Virginians hurt America, kinda
+: not a weak link in the cast, Daniel Craig a particular delight, clever plotting
-: not a deep film in any way, despite inviting it more than the Ocean’s Trilogy
At some point in the review, I’m clearly supposed to mention the phrase “Ocean’s 7/11”, because Logan Lucky itself just comes right out and uses it near the end. Fair enough. Now it’s out of the way, I’ll discuss other things.
Those other things would include a slightly maddening title — yes, the film explains it. No, it’s still not the best title they could’ve gone with. Or it could include the setting, the sorta-Appalachian move through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, which the film doesn’t do too much with — nor with NASCAR, for that matter. NASCAR is in fact undergoing something of a cultural shift, growing in popularity in Western states whilst potentially shedding its traditional fanbase in the South, but Soderbergh isn’t really all that concerned with these subjects, or the cultural particulars of West Virginia. This all makes the film a bit flat. However good it is, it’s only “good” — not a classic. There’s just a ceiling on how high I can rate Logan Lucky, and it’s not as high as, say, Ocean’s Eleven (2002), which had a perverse and intricate specificity its hillbilly counterpart lacks.
Still, if character is king we’ve got ourselves a royal family here. The film’s existence might be deserved for Daniel Craig alone, who proves he’s much more than just James Bond (he was lost in the shuffle in The Golden Compass (2007) and didn’t quite demonstrate it with the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) remake). Playing a criminal explosives expert named Joe Bang, he almost submerges himself in the role — and demonstrates a fixation with low-sodium salt that pays off wonderfully.
In the end, however, it's been a few days since I saw the film, and it's already kinda fading. The standout moment, for me, might well be an argument between the prison guards and the prisoners, who cannot quite believe that George R.R. Martin’s allowed himself to be overtaken by the TV series. It’ll date the film, but fair point: society’s collective disbelief on this (admittedly trivial) issue is probably large enough to be immortalised. The film around it is just a fun couple of hours, though.
