Logan Lucky

 I never know how to start these things.

Before going to see Steven Soderbergh’s latest, a foreseeable return from a very brief movie-making retirement, I went out to dinner with my two brothers and father. My younger brother (five years) has spent over eight years immersed in med school and all the fun that comes with it. I asked him the cliché questions regarding his chosen field, specifically about how hard it must be to be constantly in the presence of death and suffering. It was a heavy conversation, but one that I think we both needed to have for some reason. My brother was always predisposed to positivity, his decision to heal has taken a toll. This has nothing to do with Logan Lucky, which we saw after a rare evening together on the town.

Though never arduous, Logan Lucky’s heist dynamics spring from more than the desire to acquire wealth and the status/toys that comes with it. It’s built on the robust fundamentals of hierarchal antipathy, familial fidelity, and paternal desperation. The system itself is the one being outwitted and avenged. Jimmy doesn’t make much of his social grievances, he seems to accept them for what they are, but in a structure built upon survival he’s focused and determined to beat em at their own game, which he does. If the film itself has any contempt for actual people, it’s almost exclusively pinned on a sports drink tycoon prick. He’s the only character devoid of even a hint of humanity. He’s in fact a full blown villain, albeit an extremely inconsequential one. The rest of the very big cast is imbued with grace and admiration and occasional derision of the comedic variety which I’m sure will offend some and cause others to charge the very smart director with superciliousness.  I personally couldn’t give a darn about that sort of thing.

I also appreciated Soderbergh’s willingness to grant luddite propensities an esteem that approaches adoration. Cell phones and other connections to the digital realm are taken to task or mocked, while Jimmy’s disdain for such technologies, and specifically their sidetracking inclinations, ultimately spare him a lengthy stint in prison. The robbery itself is cheap, a refreshing alternative to most movies dealing with cracking safes and dodging cameras/sensors. In a film so mindful of its characters’ financial/economic/social impasse, it’s appropriate that it becomes ultimately a poor man’s heist, executed within its means. I should also point out that the performances are fine (with some minor late exceptions), my favorite being the one that I imagine many will consider the most brash. I never really know how to write about acting so I’ll just say that everything down to Daniel Craig’s enunciations had me either laughing or smiling, and I need more of that these days.   

And after admonishing a performance so big I’ll risk contrasting myself in admitting  that it’s nice to see a movie lacking the showboating/legacy building brio of other recent output. It’s also nice to see something so fun and happy. Soderbergh’s poor West Virginian edifice totters between condescension, idealism, and sincerity. But even at its sappiest or most churlish, it’s always eager to return to the film’s emotional crux; the love end devotion to family and community. I guess that’s how I’ll leave it for now.