The person that schedules movies at Garden State Plaza sucks at their job. This was a filler week for me, there was nothing I particularly wanted to see and nothing I felt obligated to see. I just needed to see something. I try to go to showtimes between 7:30 – 8:30, as then I can get to bed at a reasonable hour and still have time for dinner and several beers before the movie. Checking the showtimes in the morning, almost all of the showings during that period belonged to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Terminator 2, Marvel’s Inhumans (not a movie, mind you) and a Spanish-language film. But there was a 7:45 showing of Baby Driver, which I hadn’t seen yet. Perfect. So, I get to the theater and that showing has been cancelled. The only other thing playing in that timeframe that was A. a new movie and B. actually a movie and C. in fucking English was Logan Lucky. As it turns out, this movie is actually pretty good. Doesn’t change the fact that that theater is run by idiots, but it’s a decent movie.
Director Steven Soderbergh also made the Ocean’s movies (11, 12 and 13) and this is basically a southern, blue collar version of those movies. So much so that I have a feeling that this originated as a concept for Ocean’s 14, but George Clooney is too busy being a douche nowadays so Soderbergh made this instead. Channing Tatum plays a down-on-his-luck construction worker that concocts a scheme to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600. To do this, he enlists the help of his army veteran brother (played by Adam Driver, who is becoming one of my favorite actors these days), an incarcerated explosions expert (played oddly and awesomely by Daniel Craig) and some other guys whose job is to act as stereotypically southern as possible.
Basically, take the characters from Smokey and the Bandit and put them in the plot of Ocean’s 11 and you get Logan Lucky. That is a fun concept and this movie has a good time with it. The main characters are all endearing and humorously quirky and it is easy to find yourself rooting for them. The actors have great chemistry together and play off of each other really well. It kind of feels like an old-school ensemble film, something akin to Cannonball Run or The Great Race (not as good as those, but similar kind of thing). I could nitpick some things. The heist itself is insanely convoluted and Tatum goes from losing his job to plotting a massive robbery so quickly that he may want to see a psychiatrist. But the movie does not take itself seriously, so I won’t take it too seriously either.
I do have a couple of legitimate issues, all stemming from my suspicion that this film’s script was initially too short and padding was needed to stretch the running time. The last act is mostly post-heist and introduces two useless federal agents (played by Hilary Swank and another guy that presumably has a name) investigating the case. The problem is that these agents are the only people that care. The public has made these guys out to be heroes and even the owners of the speedway don’t give a shit because they just collected the insurance money. Everyone is telling these characters that nobody cares, but they latch onto this case like they are hunting down the zodiac killer. There is no reason for them to be in this movie. In fact, several characters don’t need to be in this movie. There is a large subplot about Tatum’s ex-wife (Katie Holmes in a rare post-2005 appearance) and daughter that is fine, but is largely unnecessary. There are also a group of jackass racecar drivers (one of whom is played by Seth MacFarlane) that appear periodically and don’t really add anything. There are so many characters in this movie that I would often forget who some secondary character was when they popped up and I just waited for it to return to the main plot.
That being said, this is a fun movie. If you like heist movies, you will probably like this. If you like heist movies and you like Nascar, then you will fucking love this. Not a great movie, but unless you speak Spanish or have never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Terminator 2, this is your best bet if you want to go to the movies over the holiday weekend.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Lucky#/media/File:Logan_Lucky.png
