Logan Lucky

Doncha just love a film that promotes itself as something that it isn’t? In this case that’s a blessing since its a hillbilly heist movie from Steven Soderbergh (The Limey) where its trailer projects a condescendingly narrow view of West Virginia crooks but it’s really an absorbing but harmless serio-comedic portrait of hardluck folks, much in the vein of Coen Brothers movies. Jimmy (Channing Tatum) was the local high school football legend who due to an injury is let go from his construction job but decides to enlist the help of his quiet, bartending, war-vet brother Clyde (Adam Driver) to knock over a NASCAR race with the help of an explosives expert (Daniel Craig) who just so happens to be incarcerated! With a stellar cast that includes Katie Holmes (as Jimmy’s ex-wife who has full custody of their beauty pageant obsessed daughter), Riley Keough (as Jimmy and Clyde’s sister), Hilary Swank and Dwight Yoakum, like a good heist the film builds its momentum through the sidewinding Soderbergh situations that result in a completely off-the-wall conclusion.

[PG-13]