Ocean's Seven-Eleven

Logan Lucky (2017) is Steven Soderbergh's answer to his own Ocean movies. It's a heist movie, but instead of a casino, they are pushing over a NASCAR race. Also, they are hicks. Also, it doesn't really hang together.

Channing Tatum is Jimmy Logan, a good man from West Virginia who loses his job driving excavating equipment. His brother is Adam Driver, a bartender who lost his arm in the war, who believes that the Logan's are all cursed. Tatum has a plan to rob the cash from a NASCAR race using the tunnels that he has been digging at work. But first, they'll need to get safecracker Daniel Craig out of prison to help.

Now, your reaction to this movie is going to hinge on how you react to Craig's attempt at a West Virginia accent. It isn't so much that it's bad - sometimes it sounds all right. But it wanders all over the place, to the point where it makes it his own thing. It's just his character - a crazy hard-ass cracker who has to watch his sodium intake.

Meanwhile, Driver is a moody conspiracy nut from a mumble-core indie and Tatum is just a solid, stand-up man of the soil, who loves his preteen beauty pageant obsessed daughter, and wants to do right by his ex-wife (Katie Holms), even though she's now married to a rich (?) used car salesman.

There's a lot going on in this movie, some of it meaningless, some of it paying off. For instance, the Logan's have a sister (Riley Keough) who drives really fast. No real pay off. The gang runs afoul an obnoxious NASCAR driver (Seth McFarlane with a British accent), and there are some funny scenes, but nothing that affects the plot. In fact, NASCAR is barely in the movie, except for a few montages. But the beauty pageant, where Tatum's daughter brings down the house with her rendition of "West Virginia", acts as an alibi. It totally fools goofy FBI agents Hilary Swank and Macon Blair (who show up at the end, as if from another movie).

Still, I have to say I enjoyed this movie greatly. It was funny, it moved right along, and it had a great soundtrack. It reminded me of Baby Driver that way, although it wasn't quite cut to the beat. Also, it was mountain music, not rock, funk, and soul. (Also, did I forget to blog Baby Driver?)

So, if you like goofy heist films, and don't care if there's a steady tone, or point, or accents, this might be for you.