Logan Lucky   Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Seth MacFarlane, Riley Keough and Katie Holmes Distributor: StudioCanal RRP: £TBC OPTD4076 Certificate: 12 Release Date: 26 December 2017

When Jimmy Logan loses his job in construction, his troubles are further compounded when he is told that his ex-wife is moving, which will make seeing his daughter harder. A despondent Jimmy goes to his brother’s bar seeing only one way out... robbery…

Logan Lucky (2017. 1 hr, 53 min, 45 sec) is a comedy crime film directed by Steven Soderbergh (Solaris (2002) Ocean’s Twelve (2004) from a Rebecca Blunt script.

Comedy is a tricky thing. Personal choice is always a barometer on what any individual will find funny, so making a film which appeals to a wide audience is difficult. I say this as I found the film, at best amusing, but that is very much a personal point of view.

The two main leads are taken by Channing Tatum as Jimmy Logan and Adam Driver as Clyde Logan. Both actors have had previous experience in comedy roles and I couldn’t fault either of their performances. The real eye opener is Daniel Craig as Joe Bang, the criminal they break out of jail to help them rob the NASCAR racetrack.

As befits the genre, even if you’re not attracted by the comedy aspect, the film remains a good heist movie, the plot is suitably convoluted and clever. The film's name comes from a theory that Clyde believes that the family is cursed to have nothing but bad luck. As for the characters the script cleverly keeps the participants this side of moronic, so they are silly without causing disbelief that they stand a chance at pulling off the job.

In fact, as portrayed by Tatum and Driver, the two main leads come over as quite endearing, offering up a redneck hillbilly version of Ocean’s Eleven. There is no subtext here except to make a film which is purely entertaining, and on that score the film succeeds.

That said, the movie is not a complete success, Soderbergh could have pushed some of the more absurdist elements of the film further. This may be an issue of the script being from a first-time writer, it’s odd that so much money had been placed on Blunt’s script who has no other entry in IMDB, or it could come from a director who has used up all his best ideas. Will the real Rebecca Blunt please stand up?

The DVD comes with only a single extra in the form of two deleted scenes, both set in the jail.

7

Charles Packer