SODERBERGH BACK FROM RETIREMENT WITH ANOTHER HEIST
STEVEN Soderbergh knows his way around a heist.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker has dabbled in burglary, robbery and larceny in several of his movies, most notably the great Out of Sight and the ever-enjoyable Ocean’s trilogy, always finding a thrill in the mechanics of the caper and the motivations of the people involved.
So, it’s somewhat fitting that he should return from a four-year “retirement” — during which he directed two seasons of the terrific pay-TV medical drama The Knick — with yet another story of a ramshackle gang of robbers after some ill-gotten gains.
Speaking for myself, and I dare say a few other moviegoers, I love it when Soderbergh tells such stories, and he’s on semi-familiar turf and in fine, fresh and frisky form with Logan Lucky.
There’s little of the sleek style of the Ocean’s squad in the Logan brothers of rural West Virginia, but underestimate them at your peril — Jimmy (Channing Tatum, rock-solid) and Clyde (Adam Driver, dry as a desert) have ingenuity and determination to burn.
But they’re also suffering from an ongoing run of bad luck (or maybe a long-running family curse) that cut Jimmy’s promising football career short with a knee injury and cost Clyde a good part of his arm during a tour of duty in Iraq.
And, when Jimmy is given the boot from his construction job because the company sees his bad knee as an insurance risk, it’s the last straw — he resolves to use his inside knowledge to rob his employer, the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Roping in Clyde and speeddemon sister Mellie (Riley Keough, who’s gonna be a superstar any second now), Jimmy comes up with a plan where the reward (millions of dollars in cash) is definitely worth the risk (such as Clyde getting sent to prison, and then immediately breaking out of said prison).
That jailbreak is a vital part of the process, because the Logans need the help of incarcerated explosives expert Joe Bang (a bleach-blond, tattooed Daniel Craig) to pull off their job.
And Logan Lucky needs Joe Bang just as much, because Craig’s sly, savvy performance is a major factor in the film’s success — 007 is having so much fun as this bizarre backwater genius that it can’t help but rub off on the viewer.
Even Joe Bang’s jerryrigged bombs are no guarantee of success, though, because there’s every chance the luck of the Logans will take a turn for the worse when the brothers least expect it.
Still, you’re likely to be cheering them on every step of the way, partly because Soderbergh and screenwriter Rebecca Blunt strike the ideal balance of finding dry, oddball wit in the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of Logan Lucky’s heroes without making them stereotypes or figures of fun.
Indeed, there’s not a mean bone in this movie’s body. . . well, except when it comes to a loud-mouthed energy-drink tycoon, played with apt boorishness by Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane, who threatens to disrupt the whole shebang.
And even though Logan Lucky revolves around theft on a grand scale, and the ins and outs of the heist are entertainingly presented, the real pleasure here — as it is with many of Soderbergh’s movies — comes from simply spending time with people who are clever, charismatic and always, always surprising.