Review: Logan Lucky

"Introducing Daniel Craig" went the credits for Logan Lucky's trailers. The billing may be cheeky but truthful. Even for those familiar with Craig's pre-Bond career as a well-regarded dramatic actor in films such as Love is the Devil, The Road to Perdition, Sylvia, The Mother, and Enduring Love, his turn as the "in-car-ce-ra-ted" explosives expert Joe Bang will be an eye-opener. Sporting tattoos and a platinum buzz-cut, he's a loosey-goosey, good-time charmer with flashes of savagery, hilarity and poignancy.

Craig's terrific performance aside, Logan Lucky also heralds the return of Steven Soderbergh to the director's chair after a four-year absence from feature filmmaking. Like Ocean's 11, Logan Lucky is a heist film though its tone is more southern fried than Sixties cool. Its Danny Ocean is Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), a star quarterback and homecoming king in his heyday now working as a blue-collar labourer. He's not having a good day - not only did he get fired from his job as a construction worker at the Charlotte Motor Speedway due to liability issues because of his injured leg, he finds out from his ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) that she and her car dealer husband are moving to Lynchburg, which means he has to cross state lines just to spend even less time with his beloved daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie), who is in the midst of preparing for a pageant.

So Jimmy formulates a plan to rob the Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600 race on Memorial Day weekend. After all, he knows how they move the money via the pneumatic tube system from his time working on the site. All he needs is some help to pull it off. Enter younger brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost his arm during his last tour in Iraq and is now tending bar at the Duck Tape. He's not so keen on having to once again follow big brother's plans, which soon involve getting Clyde in prison for 90 days, breaking Joe Bang out of that same prison for the day of the robbery, and enlisting Bang's Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum brothers (Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson) to help collect and transport the cash. The Logans' hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough) is also on hand to be the getaway driver.

Caper films come with a fairly foolproof formula. There will always be some amount of amusement to be had watching the clash of personalities, the manner in which the plan is prepared, executed and adjusted, and it is often as much fun to watch a plan go wrong as it is to watch it go right. Soderbergh lets things unfold at a leisurely pace, never hesitating to pause the proceedings for frequently comedic diversions such as rioting prisoners demanding as-yet-unwritten installments of the Game of Thrones novels, Bang giving the Logan brothers a brief lesson in chemistry to explain why fake salt, bleach pens, and gummy bears will combine to create the perfect explosive for the job, or Bang's brothers trying to reassert their flimsy moral code ("NASCAR is America. You're making us hurt America.").

Rebecca Blunt's screenplay (her first) rollicks along, diving deep and mining every bit of comic gold from its white trash milieu whilst avoiding making her characters complete caricatures. The entire cast, from the headliners to the most minor player, are excellent with Craig and Driver particular standouts. Driver is an especial source of delight, his gloriously deadpan manner yielding the most laughs.

Logan Lucky

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Written by: Rebecca Blunt

Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston, Hilary Swank, Seth MacFarlane, Sebastian Stan, Dwight Yoakam, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid