137.
Logan Lucky
8.5/10
A good, old fashioned heist movie from a guy who directed Ocean's 11, the two sequels and such utter garbage as Magic Mike. I loved the first Ocean's film and this film, again, brings an ensemble of cast members to hopefully bring something that is just a cleverly brought together. Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Daniel Craig look like being our three main schemers, so let's find out just how lucky they are going to be.
Our movie begins with showing the life of Jimmy Logan, played by Tatum. He is with his daughter, fixing his car and discussing his favourite songs. Later, he heads to work and promises to make it back for her pageant. A promise that is hardly ever kept in these movies. Going through his shift underneath the speedway, he's finally called into the office by his boss and limps away for his meeting. By the look on his face, he already knows what coming and is sacked due to his leg. Too make things a little worse, he finds out that he has missed his daughter's pageant. The news is broken to him by his sister Mellie, before he heads of to his ex-wife's home. The ex is played by Katie Holmes and she's from happy. She is clearly shown to be better off than him in her new relationship, with a huge house, many cars and wealthy interior but one side to her is that she is drinking wine at midday. Maybe things aren't the best or she is building up the confidence to tell them that they are moving the family away. He heads to his brother's bar after the bad news and his brother, played by Driver, is called Clyde. Two red neck sounding brothers so far. Clyde has lost an arm in Iraq and is a very dry sort of character. Clearly if these two are going to sort the heist, he must be the brains. Clyde thinks that the family has a curse on them, to which Jimmy wants to know nothing about. A few lads walk into the bar, one of them played by Seth MacFarlene. He is the owner of a British sports drink brand and clearly thinks he is better than anyone else. They make fun of Clyde's arm by making him mix them drinks. Jimmy doesn't like this and a fight soon begins, ending with Clyde exploding their car and Jimmy walking off shouting Cauliflower. Clyde is clearly shocked by this word, but for me, it's nothing more than a little random.
This word was linked to the brothers when they were younger. They would use it as code to commit petty crimes but this time it was going to me on a much larger scale. Jimmy wants to rob the speedway because he knows all of the underground tunnels after working on them. Mellie is also on board for the two of them and Jimmy gets Clyde on board announcing that it's time to break the family curse. The plan is explained through the use of flashbacks and Jimmy working down the tunnels himself and spotting how the transport the money through tubes. The next stop is the prison and a bleached blonde character is walking to the visitor's room. It is only showing the back of his head as to not reveal who it actually is but from the poster and trailer, we already know. They need Craig's character on side because he's an explosives and safe cracking expert. He simply laughs at them but after a while they assure him that they will break him out and get him back into prison, without anyone noticing. He will only work with them on one condition, his two brothers are also involved because he needs more men and trusts no one more. They too are recruited and our next scene quickly sets the whole plan into motion. Clyde gets himself arrested for a minor offence and is sent into the same jail as Joe, Craig's character. At the track, Mellie and the two dim-witted brother of Joe are down to carry on the next phase. In the car park, Mellie has an encounter with the husband of Jimmy's ex, to which she makes fun of his car through sexual innuendoes and homosexual ones too. The two brothers are sent to meet a bear in the woods for some equipment for Joe and this isn't just a code. There is actually a guy, dressed in a bear onsie, with a bag of explosives. Mellie was earlier painting cockroaches and these are stuck down the pipes by here to fill the safe, that way they can act as exterminators and measure the vault whilst inside it. Jimmy goes to gather supplies and is noticed by a girl he was in school with, who now works on a mobile clinic truck. He then bumps into his old boss, who doesn't want there to be any hard feelings but also mentions that work is nearly completed, which means that the plane has to move up a week. This will be the biggest race that the speedway will put on.
Back in the jail and Joe has been drinking water from the taps in the jail in order to get himself into the infirmary. Clyde is already working there as a cleaner so the two can now sort and escape route. Joe flirts awkwardly with the nurse in order to get some alone time and a toilet break. As they head to the toilet, the rest of the prisoners have been asked to start a riot, this way it locks down the blast doors and the two schemers are blocked away from everyone else so escape through the vents and head to the wood shop. They have built something to stick underneath a delivery truck and escape. At the speedway, a storm can be seen in the distance. The gang assemble underneath and make it to the pipe room. With each cockroach coloured and put into different pipes, we know which one led to the vault itself. As Mellie picks the convicts up from a gas station, we can see in the boot that there are firemen helmets, surely part to come later. The sun finally comes up and Joe along with Jimmy are walking around the shops inside the track as the two dim-wits are blowing up the electronic systems nearby in order to stop the ATM machines from working. As the actually money stealing is going on, we set a flashback in motion as a kind of montage with music. So many questioned are answered and shows how clever the plan was. She coaxed Jimmy's ex's husband to get a faster car, which she used to pick up the prisoners faster. The ATMs being blown meant taking only cash, to increase the amount they can steal. The purple asshole woman from Jimmy's sister's salon at the beginning who questioned Jimmy's motives. She's used as a scape goat to get the police off Mellie's tail when speeding. In the prison, there is hardly a riot, the prisoners are asking for the new Game of Thrones books in the library and are simply sitting around making idol demands. Back at the speedway, it turns pretty patriotic, as some American movies do. Flags flying, anthem being sang and the race is about to begin as the stealing hits a bump. Clyde's arm is sucked into the machine as the switch is reversed. They all begin to argue amongst each other, as Clyde is worried he is going to take the fall for this. Once, when they were younger, he spent time in Juvie for Jimmy and fears this will happen again. Along with this, it turns out that Jimmy was the one meant to go to Iraq, not Clyde and he would never has lost his arm. Jimmy promises that he will get the arm back but for now, they need to carry on with the removal of the cash. They get the cash into bags, the dim-wits take it out to another truck but the gate is jammed. The smoke from the vault has caused two security guards down to investigate, but they can't find anything, even with some close calls. That's until Jimmy comes and puts it back on the railings. Putting all the bags into the back of a truck, Jimmy makes his way back down for another load but it's time for Clyde and Joe to head back to prison. On their way out, they come across that snobby British guy again, arguing with his driver. Clyde ends up breaking his nose before leaving. The prisoners have started a fire in order to set the alarms off, this gets the fire brigade on the case, just as Mellie picks them up and takes them to the fire station. The outfits come into play as they disguise themselves as the firemen and head back into the prison, the same way they came out. This all seems to go too well and surely there will be something to break this job. It turns out that the thing to break it was Jimmy, he ends up giving the money back! Was this to simply get his brother's arm back? The ultimate sacrifice.
It seems that all is well and Jimmy has even made it to see his daughter at the pageant. She is going to sing Umbrella by Rihanna but as soon as she sets sights on her dad, I know she will change the song to the one they were discussing at the beginning, which she does and wins the competition. Even her step-dad was singing along and her mother had a stern face, which could represent the fact that she knows her daughter needs her father. This lays into a small montage of everyone involved in the movie, passed out on their own beds. The next day and Mellie doesn't want to see Jimmy after knowing what he done to tip them off about the money. Clyde opens a package, that we don't see, but guess is his arm. At the speedway, an FBI agent played by Hilary Swank, is investigating the robbery. Her voice seems way over the top, as she seems to play the bad cop. The Warden didn't give much away, because he didn't want to seem like his prison was weak. But at the speedway, the owner simply tells her there was no way in knowing how much was stolen or retrieved but they still had a decent insurance pay out. The smug British guy, which a broken nose now, blames the robbery on the Logan brother but this is put down to a vendetta that he has against them. With lack of evidence, it eventually gets shut down and you think the movie would come to an end, but no, there is another twist. Joe gets out of jail to track down Jimmy, but Clyde hasn't seen him. Instead we notice that he has a new arm, one that looks very expensive. He said that Jimmy has moved to be closer to his daughter. Back at Joe's there is a moment that he thinks about digging up some money that he stashed before and knew that his ex-girlfriend had stolen. Underneath his tree is a garbage bag of the money from the heist. How is this possible? This film is the gift that keeps on giving and it's time for another montage. Jimmy has a side plan all along, one to through the cops off the scent once some of the money was returned. The gate not working, was because Jimmy had tampered with the sensor so that the gate wouldn't work and when he went back to the pipes, Mellie was there with other black bags full to take out of a different exit. The arm was always still inside the vacuum, so Jimmy took that out straight away and the actual cleaner working there was also in on it. They buried the other money bags in the dump and all of this was shown through a musical montage. Money wasn't only split between the gang, some went to the people who were involved without even knowing. That includes the mobile clinic that he makes a big donation to. At the end, the nurse walks into Clyde's bar as Jimmy is now back for a drink. She is finally a love interest in this movie. It was strange not to have one as the actual sex symbol for males, was the sister all along. He waited a while to resurface and things to die down before digging back up the money. As the camera pans across the bar, we see a woman from behind drinking and her voice is too familiar. It's the FBI agent drinking, still trying to work on the case undercover. Just as we think they have gotten away with it.
This film was a great rollercoaster of a heist film. Just when you think you have it worked out, it turns on you once again and runs into a different scheme. It was clever enough to have one plan, which seemed to work but threw the movie on its head with the thought or surrender and then actually a side plan to steal the money. Each character was too their own and although we are used to brain and brawn, Tatum's character actually brought both to the table without us realising. This was the feature that brought the director out of retirement and he was clearly passionate about it. This was a fun watch but had some points that didn't really work too much as the love interest wasn't shown more than twice on screen and the NASCAR and sports drink side plot didn't work as well and simply seemed crammed in. But to end on a high note, this is easily watchable again, just to take in each clever scenario that played out. It was smoother than many plots of the same genre.
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