Review of Logan Lucky (2017) by Wayne K — 15 Nov 2017

Steven Soderbergh makes a return to directing, though not necessarily a return to form, with Logan Lucky, a madcap heist movie with high stakes, à la Oceans 11. In fact, that film is referenced almost by name in the 3rd act.

It has a fun story at its core and the acting is great across the board. The British accent Seth McFarlane adopts for an extended cameo is especially impressive. Channing Tatum & Adam Driver have very believable chemistry as the down-on-their-luck brothers, and Daniel Craig is terrific fun as the Southern safecracker who you can never quite figure out.

Unfortunately, for a film billed as a comedy, the laughs are way too infrequent and thinly spread. It contains such massive dead zones where little that is funny or even dramatic actually happens, and should really have been trimmed down or omitted altogether.

The pacing is also disappointing, lacking the swift, effortless drive and slick wit that made Ocean's 11 so much fun. The heist doesn't appear to be very difficult to pull off, with minimum risk and little interference, and once it's over what happens afterwards is even less interesting, especially the investigation by the FBI, since they spell out what we already seen with our own eyes.

It's not fair to write it off so completely, since there are some genuinely funny moments, some of which actually had me laughing as loud and as hard as I possibly could. But the films slowness and seemingly pointless meandering scenes don't warrant a re-watch.

It was great to see it since I'd heard so much positive feedback, but it was lacking the urgency and spark that defines much of Soderbergh's best work.