2017, d. Steven Soderbergh - Netflix
I wish I had seen Logan Lucky before I saw the season 4 Rick and Morty episode ""One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty", wherein Rick get out all his frustrations with (or really, vehement hatred of) the heist genre of films. The episode takes a very satirical look at the overused cliches of the genre, and then drums them into the ground so effectively that one may wish to never see them again.
I didn't really know that's what Logan Lucky was about when I chose to watch it. I remembered the advertising from back when it came out and it had an almost Coen Bros. vibe to it. With some star players putting on a thick southern drawl, I was perhaps hoping for a Carolina's-based Fargo-type story. Alas, it's another heist movie. Soderbergh loves his heist movies.
Logan Lucky walks a fine line between mocking and sympathizing the North Carolinians in his picture. He at once upholds dumb southerner stereotypes while also allowing for the fact that the accent can undersell one's intelligence, even perhaps manipulating the audience into thinking all the characters are rubes or idiots, when it may well be that Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is somewhat of a genius, and a few of his accomplices have their own deep competencies.
His crew consists of his hairdresser sister Millie (Riley Keough), his one-armed veteran brother Clyde (Adam Driver), explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe's cousins Sam and Fish Bang (Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid), with the latter two really inhabiting the bumpkin cliche. The plan is to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in a crime of opportunity. Jimmy has devised a plan based on some inside knowledge he gained while working construction to repair sinkholes. The one catch is there's a particular safe style that they need a particular skill set to bust open, that being Joe Bang, who, unfortunately, is currently incarcerated and the window to getting things done is fast closing. Thus the plan also entails Clyde getting arrested and then busting Joe Bang out of prison, and returning him after the job, without anyone being the wiser.
There's the usual fake-outs and deceits along the way but the job goes off with complications, and then the feds get involved.
There's some side-plotting featuring Seth McFarlane as a rich energy drink mogul and Sebastian Stan as a NASCAR driver sponsored by said energy drink, as well as dealing with Jimmy's custody issues surrounding his daughter with his ex-wife (Katie Holmes). The daughter stuff seems important to Jimmy's character but the NASCAR side story is tangential, until it isn't.
By the end we get the "look how clever" montage and perhaps the hint of a not so happy ending afterall. It's light and fun, but it's saying next to nothing. It has no real cultural statement, no commentary on racing, or southern culture, or American culture or crime. It seems to revel intentionally in drinking and fighting and children's pageantry and racing and crime... as if Soderbergh truly wanted an Oceans 13 for the redneck set.
I had never really thought about how repetitious heist films are until Rick and Morty and while I don't have quite the fervent disdain for them as Rick does, I certainly understand the apathy towards them now.
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