“Logan Lucky” Is Just Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” Trilogy Set In Appalachia

Channing Tatum and Adam Driver lead the pitch-perfect band of folksy thieves.

By Chance Solem-Pfeifer

You don't have enough fingers to count the ways Logan Lucky draws from director Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's series. In one of the heist film's more obvious nods, the Logans, a supposedly cursed West Virginia family, nickname themselves "Ocean's 7-11" on an in-movie newscast.

Soderbergh's first film in four years is a manual for conducting the perfect, victimless, NASCAR-adjacent robbery. After the robbery plays out in the movie's second act, Logan Lucky flashes back to the steps it intentionally left out.

The pitch-perfect band of thieves thrives on folksy glibness while never throttling all the way over to wackiness. As the Logan brothers, Channing Tatum and Adam Driver, are laconic and weatherbeaten, gentle roughnecks who need a win in this life. And as explosives expert Joe Bang, Daniel Craig's brilliance is in appearing like a maniac but never detonating.

Still, we've already seen Soderbergh's played this hand before with snappier pacing and editing. Even so, Soderbergh is perhaps Hollywood's finest technician, and it's a pleasure to watch him tour his Vegas act through Appalachia.

CRITIC'S RATING: 3/4 stars

Logan Lucky plays at Bagdad, Bridgeport, Division, Fox Tower, Tigard, Vancouver. Rated PG-13.

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