Logan Lucky

For my taste, this Soderbergh movie is too long and drawn out, lacks pace and offers only very few really funny moments. Unfortunately, I was bored most of the time, not even the stellar cast could help. Maybe if Hilary Swank had been given more space, I would have spoken differently, because it was the scenes with her that caught my attention, especially the surprisingly well-pointed one at the very end. (55%) (11/10/2022)

A nearly perfect subversive version of Ocean’s Eleven that goes about it in a different way than you'd expect. The main characters claim to be morons, and they are not very far from it, but they find themselves in a story where everybody is a moron, so they don't have to outsmart any motherfucking big boss, which nobody would buy, but only outsmart themselves and thus the viewer. Those expecting a stylized diamond robbery with an elaborate heist will be disappointed; this is "only" a cleverly constructed narrative with its own rules, where Soderbergh humorously departs from the expected patterns and enriches the main storyline with surprising twists and themes. The only problems of the brawny bunch during the heist are neither incompetent security nor electronic defence systems, but only their own stubbornness, and the experienced director surprises the viewer even in the end, when after a quickly edited passage from the heist he switches to the expected epilogue, which both reverses the previous impression of the robbers' idiocy with a classical explanation of the unrevealed events of the plot, and introduces the character of the investigator, who, despite the lack of evidence, is not about to give up and leaves the ending relatively open (and even before that, paradoxically, dismisses the only possible witness). And why did I say it’s almost perfect? Because, as much as the whole works admirably and twists expectations beautifully, I often felt an underdevelopment from the individual motifs and especially the dialogue. If more work had been done on the verbal jokes and the ending hadn't slowed down the pace so much, I would have been thrilled. (29/11/2017)

I was going to give the film two stars but ended up adding a third one thanks to the second half. Once again, Channing Tatum failed to convince me that he's an actor. The only performance worth mentioning was Daniel Craig’s. I wasn't particularly enjoying the film until about halfway through, which is when things got slightly better, but I still felt like I I'd seen it all before (several times). (25/01/2018)

I've been quite fond of Soderbergh's films lately, but Logan Lucky didn't do it for me at all. It's shot really well, and there's an attempt to capture the Southern setting, which it did, but plot-wise I just didn't enjoy the film and I didn't relate to the individual characters. It was a bit boring for me in that regard. (03/12/2017)

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to go into Logan Lucky thinking you'll get a redneck version of Ocean’s Eleven, but I didn't count on that. On the other hand, the new Soderbergh film might have some of that style. Actually, probably any style. While there are a few endearingly bizarre humorous moments, Logan Lucky is far from a comedy. There's a heist, but its fairly seamless planning and execution is unlikely to excite fans of heist movies. There's some drama, too, as the protagonists have to deal with the fact that their lives are in the gutter and it's not likely to get any better, but we don't get anything groundbreaking or particularly interesting in that regard either. And what you end up with is a film that, while full of stars, fails to entertain in any of its forms. Fortunately, it doesn't bore either. (31/08/2017)