LOGAN LUCKY - a movie review -
There's an agreeable slouchy quality to the southern-fried caper movie, LOGAN LUCKY. The actors all drawl (it's set in and around Georgia) and the money-laden target is Formula One. It feels somewhat like it was written and directed for a lark -- and the huge reason for that could be that Stephen Soderbergh announced he was retired from Hollywood a few years ago, but he still wrote, filmed and directed this movie, sometimes under pseudoyms. And since it's a Soderberg movie, they can expicitly compare this to his Oceans 12 and 13 movies. And it is in the same genre.
But this one is a little malformed. Since I'm all about the story and the structure, I can tell you without spoilering that this one starts to set up motivations and a plan, then ducks out from most of the planning (but it happened on screen so the little bit of "getting the rascals together" plot helped fill in a direction), and straight up goes in a baffling non-ending ending. Like, what was that all about?
I liked the movie just fine because it had a lot of color and texture and accents and good acting. But it suffered from my POV from having people I can't stand (Seth McFarland! Doing Cockney! Being slimy and narcissistic!) (Katherine Waterston in short hair; has there ever been such a potato-faced person with so little emotive ability getting big movie roles?) and people I'm only neutral about (Adam Driver; such a big goon of an actor, and here he drawls very slowly). Tatum Channing is the "George Clooney" of this story, and he's a sweet, limping guy in this. Doesn't neccessarily have the smarts and leadership charisma for a caper, it seems. And then maybe the ending is meant to say he was trying for a different outcome all along? That's a problem when the casting messes up the story.
But then! James Bond does a King of the Hill impression. Daniel Craig is fascinating as Joe Bang. I kept waiting for his platinimum-haired hillbilly bomb expert to have a false drawl or moment, but he was excellent all the way through. A highlight of the movie. And just for grins, his stupider hillbilly brothers include a son of Brian Gleeson, so an Irish kid doing a southern accent, and he's also great. There are maybe too many elements in the story; the kiddie pageant stuff that Tatum's daughter does is in there too much. The bureaucracy that comes in at the end to find the thieves is like a whole different story. But it was a pretty good movie with stuff you don't see every day.
But this one is a little malformed. Since I'm all about the story and the structure, I can tell you without spoilering that this one starts to set up motivations and a plan, then ducks out from most of the planning (but it happened on screen so the little bit of "getting the rascals together" plot helped fill in a direction), and straight up goes in a baffling non-ending ending. Like, what was that all about?
I liked the movie just fine because it had a lot of color and texture and accents and good acting. But it suffered from my POV from having people I can't stand (Seth McFarland! Doing Cockney! Being slimy and narcissistic!) (Katherine Waterston in short hair; has there ever been such a potato-faced person with so little emotive ability getting big movie roles?) and people I'm only neutral about (Adam Driver; such a big goon of an actor, and here he drawls very slowly). Tatum Channing is the "George Clooney" of this story, and he's a sweet, limping guy in this. Doesn't neccessarily have the smarts and leadership charisma for a caper, it seems. And then maybe the ending is meant to say he was trying for a different outcome all along? That's a problem when the casting messes up the story.
But then! James Bond does a King of the Hill impression. Daniel Craig is fascinating as Joe Bang. I kept waiting for his platinimum-haired hillbilly bomb expert to have a false drawl or moment, but he was excellent all the way through. A highlight of the movie. And just for grins, his stupider hillbilly brothers include a son of Brian Gleeson, so an Irish kid doing a southern accent, and he's also great. There are maybe too many elements in the story; the kiddie pageant stuff that Tatum's daughter does is in there too much. The bureaucracy that comes in at the end to find the thieves is like a whole different story. But it was a pretty good movie with stuff you don't see every day.