Logan Lucky

Channing Tatum, Riley Keogh and Adam Driver in Logan Lucky

Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky is a middling effort from one of America's top tier filmmakers, yet even a pleasant commercial diversion from Soderbergh is better than most. Soderbergh's best films balance his commercial and independent impulses: King of the Hill. Out of Sight, The Limey, Che and Magic Mike. Soderbergh has expressed his dissatisfaction with what is left of the film industry and has shifted his artier instincts into television work with success in Behind the Candelabra, The Girlfriend Experience and The Knick. Logan Luck more resembles his genre work on Erin Brockovich, Haywire and his biggest commercial successes, the Ocean's 11 films.

Like those films, Logan Lucky is a heist film, though tailored to the more working class appeal of Channing Tatum rather than George Clooney in Armani. The West Virginia setting suits the class consciousness of Soderbergh, but the Southern accents fly every which way. The West Virginia accent is hard to pin down, but only Riley Keough gets close. The debut script by Rebecca Blunt is solidly constructed, but indulges in broad redneck humor. Adam Driver and Mr. Tatum are somewhat miscast. Particularly, Tatum, one of the most physically talented of the current crop of Hollywood leading men, who plays a character saddled with a limp.

However, the script's most possibly bathetic moment, a song at a children's beauty pageant, is well handled by Soderbergh; as is the rural pageantry of stock car races and county fairs. Soderbergh does not condescend to his material and there is less winking at the audience than in the Ocean's films. This is a heist film that begs the audience's indulgence at its contrivance, but also eggs us on to root for its heroes as emblematic underdogs of American society. Soderbergh once again works with composer David Holmes and it is the kinetic clashing of mise-en-scene, editing, sound and music that provides the film its main interest. Logan Lucky ends with tentative romantic partners paired at a bar for a celebratory toast, much like the ending of a Shakespearean comedy or a musical. This tips us that this film is more interested in choreographed movement and reaction rather than character development or deep thematic import. All the same, Soderbergh has directed a largely winning entertainment, if not a deeply personal expression. (12/15/17)