We all knew that Steven Soderbergh's retirement from feature filmmaking in 2013 following the release of Side Effects was unlikely to last. Indeed, one could argue that it never really began, given his work on Cinemax's The Knick and other projects. But it's nice to have him officially back in business with Logan Lucky, a star-studded heist flick that calls to mind some of the eclectic director's most popular work even if it falters a bit at the end.
Jimmy and Clyde Logan (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver, respectively) are desperate to catch a break. Jimmy's lost his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway because he failed to disclose an old football injury. Clyde's a one-handed veteran tending bar in their hometown. Clyde believes their family cursed. His injury occurred as he was literally on the road out of Iraq, and his brother's just before the beginning of a promising NFL career. But Jimmy doesn't buy it.
As if to prove his brother wrong, Jimmy puts together a daring plan to rip off the Charlotte Motor Speedway that involves not only absconding with a huge sum of money but also breaking explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) out of—and then back into—prison again. Oh, and he needs to get all this wrapped up in time to see his daughter, Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie), perform at the Little Miss West Virginia* pageant in order to prove to his ex-wife, Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), that he is not the deadbeat he often appears to be.
Any successful heist flick succeeds or fails on the basis of two key components. Component the first: how clever is the plan into—and, more importantly, out of—the location being ripped off. Component the second: how much do we enjoy spending our time with the cast of characters assembled.
Soderbergh has assembled a winning group of actors, so no worries on the second front: Craig looks like he's having the time of his life, sporting a southern lilt to go with a bleached blonde dome, while Tatum's downhome charm contrasts perfectly with Driver's standoffish mien. But the breakout presence of Logan Lucky is Riley Keough, playing Mellie Logan. Keough carries herself with a snippy southern haughtiness, casually deploying her acid-tipped tongue on any who incur her wrath. She imbues even the little moments with energy—as when she silently dismisses Jimmy with a wrist-twisting flick of her garishly manicured fingers or when she strides out to a Mustang she's going to hotwire and gazes coolly at the muscle car's gaudy frame.
As one might expect from the guy who brought us two good Ocean's movies (Ocean's 12 never happened), Soderbergh (and his mysterious screenwriter, Rebecca Blunt) assemble the first half with clocklike precision. This is a low-tech, low-budget break in, and the Logan crew utilizes everything from cockroaches to explosive gummy bears to get the job done. As far as the "getting away" goes, I'll admit to being a bit less impressed: clocking in at nearly two hours long, Logan Lucky limps to the finish line, dragging out the finale for an artificially happy ending that takes altogether too much time tying up loose ends of characters we simply do not care about.
One wonders if Logan Lucky might have been better paced sans the efforts of Seth MacFarlane, who plays an Australian energy drink magnate named Max Chilblain sponsoring a car at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. While his first appearance early on in the film aids us in understanding the ways in which the Logan brothers look out for one another, the rest of his storyline feels extraneous.
One gets the sense that Soderbergh wanted to make a point about the conflict between art and commerce: the energy drink he's shilling ends up harming his car's driver, a renaissance-man motorist enticed out of retirement to take another run at glory. Or perhaps he wanted to highlight how foolish we all look stuck behind our smartphone cameras—one of the more amusing sight gags has Max and his two-man entourage with all holding phones to their face, one at the ear, another at the mouth, the last over his eyes, mimicking the three monkeys. Indeed, Max may just be a receptacle for all of Soderbergh's frustration with modernity; sadly, the points being made are not interesting enough to cancel out the drag he puts on the film. Given Soderbergh's penchant for reediting masterpieces, I'd be intrigued to see what a MacFarlane-free cut of Logan Lucky looks like.
*Or whatever you call pageants for little girls in West Virginia; apologies to the beauty queens out there if I have maligned the event by misnaming it.
Author's note: The last two paragraphs were expanded slightly after publication.