Weekend Movie Pick: Logan Lucky

Need a 119-minute break from the news headlines? This Steven Soderbergh caper comedy, script by Rebecca Blunt, may be just the thing (trailer). There’s nothing too serious going on (a planned heist at NASCAR’s big Memorial Day weekend race), but the characters are so well-developed and their robbery plot so complicated and devious, your attention is captured from the outset.

Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, out of work and, if his ex-wife has her way, out of his young daughter’s life. He needs money. He proposes the theft to his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), the serious one, a bartender who lost an arm in Afghanistan. Clyde is reluctant, because he’s convinced every family enterprise is destined for disaster—“the curse of the Logans.” Love how he whips up a martini one-handed to quiet a mouthy British patron (Seth MacFarlane)! Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), a beautician, is in on it too and gets sweet revenge on an irritating client who drives a purple Caddy. See that for yourself.

To pull off this daring crime, the brothers need help. Unfortunately, the one man they know who really knows how to blow a safe is in prison. Part of their plan is to spring him for a day. Daniel Craig plays prisoner Joe Bang, in “a wonderfully wacky, show-stealing turn,” said Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter. Joe insists his two brothers (Jack Quaid and Briain Gleeson) be brought into the plot, and the likelihood of success appears to plummet as these two slouch onto the scene. Prison warden Burns (Dwight Yoakam) is also a treat.

Many funny moments, some relatively subtle. I particularly enjoyed the big race’s opening ceremony, which deployed all the worst excesses of American sports jingoism.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 93%; audiences: 76%.