Two brothers plan a robbery during a NASCAR race in Logan Lucky. Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is a down on his luck man, who was fired from his mining job and is constantly at odds with his ex-wife Bobbie Jo Chapman (Katie Holmes), who has custody of their daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie). With the help of his one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver), hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough), and incarcerated demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), Jimmy plans to rob the vault of the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the busiest race of the year.
It was four years ago when director Steven Soderbergh announced that he was going to retire from filmmaking. Of course, he never truly went away, as he was still involved in numerous projects, including the TV series The Knick. However, Logan Lucky is indeed Soderbergh’s first theatrical effort since 2013’s Side Effects. The film returns the director to familiar territory, as Logan Lucky essentially follows the template of 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven and its two sequels, except that it has an added white trash element.
Logan Lucky marks Steven Soderbergh’s fourth collaboration with Channing Tatum, who stars as Jimmy Logan, who seems destined to be a victim of a curse that is seemingly plaguing his family. While working a job underneath the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jimmy finds out that the money from the track is transferred into an underground vault. After he is fired from his job, Jimmy decides that he will rob the money from the vault. To perform the job, Jimmy recruits a gang that includes his brother Clyde and sister Mellie, as well as Joe Bang and his brothers Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson).
While Logan Lucky is a film that follows the Ocean’s Eleven template to a T, it also stands out on its own, with a memorable cast of characters. Undoubtedly, the actor who steals the film is Daniel Craig playing against type as the very white trash demolition expert Joe Bang, who is nearly unrecognizable with bleach blonde hair and a thick accent. In addition to the central cast of the film, Logan Lucky also features brief appearances by Katherine Waterston as free clinic doctor Sylvia Harrison and Hillary Swank as FBI agent Sarah Grayson. Then there’s also Seth MacFarlane, sporting a mustache and British accent, as arrogant businessman Max Chilblain and Sebastian Stan as NASCAR driver Dayton White.
Altogether, with Logan Lucky Steven Soderbergh comes out of retirement with a pretty fun redneck heist film.
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