Review of Logan Lucky (2017) by Sylvia R — 30 Dec 2017

My main issues with the film center on the fact that its too derivative of Soderbergh's other films, the humor is too based on pop culture which wont be relevant 5 years from now, and the characters while given long moments of dialogue are not complicated enough in terms of their motivations.

I feel like the casting was superb and because they were cast by subverting expectations for Craig, Keough, and others it brought a depth to the characters that the script did not. Take for instance Keough's character - she's the sister who dresses with neon bras and her nails are super long and she paint cockroaches and teases hair.

She looks mostly like how you would expect. Her motivations are pretty weak. The depth comes from Keough's performance and that's it. Why not give her a different profession and still have her dress the way she does? Erin Brockovich was a much more complex female character (mostly because she was a real person) but also because the writer took to the time to develop who she was and she wasn't what people expected a woman who wanted to help save a community from water pollution looks like.

Same with Craig who delivers an outstanding, one of a kind performance. Taking James Bond and giving him a chance to be funny is awesome. The fun he is having is electric - I just wish that the story matched that high level of acting.

It just didn't and felt hollow at times like it was missing something. In terms of things it ripped off from Soderbergh films, the fireman ending is a complete rip off of the SWAT team in Ocean's 11.

Even down to the camera shot of the fireman helmets in her car was so much like the close-up on the bags leaving with the SWAT team or the air freshner close-up. You could also say the whole scene with the West Virginia button blocking the wire gate was alot like Ocean's 11 where they pretend to have the SWAT team break into the vault.

It's like lets make commotion over here to hide what we are doing which is filling bags with money - same thing. The entire ending just felt like I was watching Ocean's 11 over again. Swank's character was a ripoff of Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight but it didn't really fit because it's very strange to bring in a character into the third act.

I had very little connection to her. There were plot holes like the Logan brothers say they need a computer whiz which lays up the twitter joke nicely but then they never use any computers. so why did they need a computer whiz? Just to tell that joke and then nothing comes from it.

Charlotte is much further from West Virginia then they are representing. I don't think the brothers could have predicted that the prison warden who I thought was portrayed very well by Yoakam would be so reticent to report anything - I think that was WAY too convenient and a bit lazy in storytelling.

The West Virginia John Denver song was emotional but it didn't feel earned - it felt like a ripoff of Little Miss Sunshine - I feel like this is the direction films are headed in now - very expertly put together but borrowing so much from others things in a cut and paste way without a real story development - just borrowing from a bunch of other things and hoping with a happy ending that people will go with it.

The fact that Swank's character is there at the end is completely like the ending of Out of Sight and it's cat and mouse approach but since the whole film wasn't like that and wasn't about that relationship it just feels stapled on at the end.

I also wish there was more of a feeling like it all might not work. I love a lot of Soderbergh films but I wish he made us believe more that things might end badly. I wish we were more in suspense - it all feels just a little too choreographed.

Even when things happen they don't expect like the MacFarlane guy seeing them it all gets tied up with a bow when the driver wont back up the story - were there no cameras anywhere in this stadium? Did I miss the part where the tech guy blows out all the security cameras so the FBI would never see these people on any camera anywhere? Lastly, I love that Soderbergh often brings 60s and 70s film editing styles and camerawork to contemporary audiences so I always have liked how he takes he makes things old feel new.

This is the first film of his that I felt like the story was too much taking from his own films.