Logan Lucky

Director Steven Soderbergh, known for such films as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Erin Brockovich, Out of Sight, and Magic Mike, decided to "retire" from directing in 2013, although he never really stopped working.  He officially came out of retirement in 2016 to direct Logan Lucky (2017) and has remained busy ever since.  The most relevant titles in his catalog would be Ocean's Eleven and its sequels, since Logan Lucky is another comedic heist story, albeit one told with a slightly different tone and sense of pacing.

Although it's not quite as star-studded as the Ocean's movies, Logan Lucky features a cast with a few big names and several outstanding up-and-comers.  Every actor gets a chance to shine, getting laughs through their total commitment to playing the story straight and avoiding the urge to act silly.  The entire film is written with a dry, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and you can tell the actors are having a blast, especially Daniel Craig, who seems to relish his role in between James Bond projects.

Channing Tatum stars as Jimmy Logan, who has just been laid off from work because of some ridiculous insurance concern.  As a divorced father struggling to balance his parenting duties with his job, the timing of the layoff is bad.  He goes to the Duck Tape bar run by his brother Clyde (Adam Driver, excellent) to drown his sorrows and gather his thoughts.  In walks Max Chilblain (Seth McFarlane), an obnoxious British NASCAR team owner, who proceeds to disrespect Clyde, who lost an arm in Iraq and wears a prosthetic.  Jimmy starts a fight with Max and his goons, which ends with Chilblain's vehicle on fire.  As Jimmy walks away, he shouts to his brother: "Cauliflower!"  (This is the most amusing code word I've ever encountered.)

The unfolding of Jimmy's "cauliflower plans," as Clyde describes them, is part of the pleasure of watching the movie.  Jimmy has decided to rob the vault of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, possibly as retaliation against the insurance company responsible for his firing, and his distaste for people like Max Chilblain.  Not only do they include their little sister Mellie (Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis Presley), they decide they can't do it without explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who in turn says he can't do it without his brothers, Sam (Brian Gleeson) and Fish (Jack Quaid).  There's one small hitch: they'll have to break Joe out of prison so he can assist with the robbery.

For anyone who hasn't seen the film, I'm going to leave out the rest of the plot to preserve the enjoyment of watching it for the first time.  The story pulls in all kinds of other characters, including Dwight Yoakam as the prison warden; Katie Holmes as Jimmy's ex-wife; Sebastian Stan as Dayton White, the NASCAR driver sponsored by Max; and Hilary Swank as an FBI agent brought in to investigate the alleged crime (hardly anyone has mentioned this, but I'd swear she's doing an imitation of Clint Eastwood).  And, like the Ocean's trilogy, there's a multitude of memorable characters who play unwitting roles in the heist.

We spend a fair amount of time wondering if most of these characters are too stupid to accomplish any of their elaborate plans.  This isn't the slick team of veteran con artists gathered by Danny Ocean that operates (most of the time) like a well-oiled machine.  This is, essentially, a bunch of rednecks who only hustle when they have to.  You'd be surprised at what they can do.

The dialogue is a straight-faced riot of ridiculousness.  The more I watch it, the more I laugh.  The characters say things like, "I looked it up on the Google."  Daniel Craig comes up with the most amusing way to say "incarcerated" that I've ever heard.  (There's something about Craig explaining the science of explosives with a Southern accent that I find hysterical.)  And Brian Gleeson, playing Sam Bang, gets to say one of the greatest, most ludicrous words in the movie, which I won't spoil, except to mention that he tends to get his words mixed up.

One of the funniest scenes takes place during a prison riot, with Warden Burns (Yoakam) having an argument with the inmates.  It's not what he's saying that's particularly amusing as much as the context of the entire situation.  The story tends to move at what I call "a Southern pace," which doesn't mean it's slow, per se, but that it takes time for scenes like this, allowing the humor to accumulate before moving on.

My favorite dialogue exchange in the whole movie occurs when the Logan brothers visit Joe in prison.  When they ask him how it's going, he says, "Well, I'm on this side of the table wearing a onesie.  How d'you think it's going?"  Funny all by itself, until Clyde says, "Well, you look good."  How many times have we caught ourselves saying something like that during an awkward encounter?

The movie is absolutely poking a little fun at the region and culture, but you can tell that Soderbergh and his collaborators enjoy these characters.  No one condescends to the material because this isn't a mean-spirited satire.  And there's a recognition of real life as well (especially in scenes like the one where Katherine Waterston shows up, not to mention the entire NASCAR event).  Look at the use of the John Denver song "Take Me Home, Country Roads."  In the instant we think it's going to be used for a laugh, it turns into something sort of moving.

The story is a brilliant labyrinth of details that must work together like clockwork as we follow a team of misfits who must not only pull off a robbery, but also break a man out of prison, break him back in to prison, and somehow get Jimmy to his daughter's beauty pageant on time.  And just when we think the story has reached its unexpected conclusion, we discover that Soderbergh has more up his sleeve, much like he did when he announced his retirement and comeback.  He has never been stuck making only one kind of movie, with fun movies like this mixed in with more "serious" fare.  Logan Lucky is like a glorious stop along a highway where being a tourist was never more entertaining.