420: Logan Lucky

[00:00:00] Tor Schuss oder Glanzparade? Zeig dein Fußballkönnen in deinen Spandau-Arkaden. Werde zum Torschützen oder VR-Torwart und gewinne coole Preise. Donnerstags bis Samstags, 11 bis 19 Uhr. Achso, und einkaufen kannst du ja natürlich auch. spandau-arkaden.de Together you can. So the first one is Logan Lucky.

[00:00:35] It is directed by Steven Soderbergh of course. Star is Chayne Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Farrah McKenzie, Riley Coe, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane and many many others. And the synopsis is two brothers attempt to pull off a heist during a NASCAR race in North Carolina.

[00:00:57] So I am a big Steven Soderbergh fan and I actually did, or we did rather, the first Film Buds bonus show covering Steven Soderbergh films. So you can check out the first chunk of those on our bonus show page once again.

[00:01:14] And I just got caught up on a lot of his recent films which I'll be covering this week. And he's someone whose films I always want to see and he's very much an auteur but I think he's also a very unpretentious auteur. He

[00:01:28] still makes very small scale, you know, iPhone shot films, sometimes very experimental. He's not in the need of always having a big budget or anything like that. He just clearly has a love for storytelling and for a variety of storytelling so that's something I very much appreciate.

[00:01:45] But this one, of all seven that we're going to be talking about is probably the most commercial big budget sort of film. And I think we did, I think we reviewed it originally when it first came out so you can check out that

[00:02:00] original episode way, way early on in the podcast. And so getting into it, first of all, I'm from North Carolina so when I found out it was in North Carolina I was ready for that and I loved

[00:02:12] NASCAR when I was a kid so a lot of things came together for this and the whole cast is fantastic so there are a lot of elements that really had me I've seen it three or four times, I think over the years

[00:02:24] and I'm still a big fan of it. Of all the seven in this group, if you haven't seen any of them or if you're new to Steven Soderbergh, this is probably the one to start with. It's the most accessible

[00:02:36] in my opinion but I'm still a big fan of it as I said. I think it's so entertaining, it's so funny, like it's rare you get either a heist movie or just a big budget comedy that is still actually funny and oftentimes hinges

[00:02:51] on performances, not just the writing itself. Like Daniel Craig, I say every time I talk about him, I love Daniel Craig. I think he is you know, considering he's Bond or he was Bond, he's someone who easily could be put into the category of well he's just

[00:03:09] in it for the money, he's phoning it in, you know Bond was his only success, blah blah blah, now he's just writing off the coattails of that but really every performance he gives is spot on. It's unique, like Low and Lucky, Knives

[00:03:24] Out, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, they're all different, they're all interesting, they're all very compelling so I think he is an amazing actor. Maybe underrated isn't the right word considering the success he's had but I think he's very, very deserving of it.

[00:03:39] Shane Tatum and Adam Driver are awesome, Riley Coe, really everybody in the movie is very good and having this heist take place at a NASCAR race is pretty unique, I haven't really seen that before I don't believe and the

[00:03:57] sequence of them coming together with the team and Adam Driver and Shane Tatum being these brothers and then meeting Joe Bang which is Daniel Craig, that's hilarious and just the oddball group of very inept criminals is very entertaining, I'm always

[00:04:12] up for that sort of thing and it's directed very well, the score is very good, a lot of iconic Soderbergh sounds and camera angles and all that and he's very good at heist movies and having fun with goofy criminals like in

[00:04:30] Ocean's Eleven for example or The Informant, that sort of thing. So all that is excellent, talking about small little things, it is maybe a little bit long and there are points towards the end where it maybe drags a little bit, nothing crazy but it does lose pacing

[00:04:48] consistency every so often but that's sort of normal with Soderbergh at times and another thing that, oh I didn't even talk about Seth MacFarlane, I don't dislike Seth MacFarlane but I think his character is a little overdone in this, the performance

[00:05:03] the amount of time he's on screen, it's a little much and so I don't love that character and then oh and Sebastian Stan is in this as well, really like him the only story writing part of the film that I don't like

[00:05:18] and I think it's generally seen as the weakest part and it just seems so random and unnecessary is the Game of Thrones gag in the prison where the prisoners are wanting to read the next Game of Thrones book in exchange for something and there's this really

[00:05:36] long extended couple of scenes where they're talking about all these plot points from the series and like oh but this, we need to know what happens with this and then no it's not like that, it's like this and it just seems so

[00:05:51] extended, like if it was just a 30 second little joke or something like that in a scene, that's different but it feels for what the movie is, it feels completely injected for no reason and there are a lot funnier sequences and lines in this movie than that

[00:06:06] and because when I first saw it I had fun with it at the very beginning but on rewatch it's just sort of a slog to get through those sequences, they just get really tiring so not a fan of that, not really sure why

[00:06:18] they had to put that in there but whatever, not a huge deal but don't like it very much. Other than that it is just a really refreshing sort of film and it's one that doesn't really get made all that often with the sort of cast, the setting

[00:06:33] and is definitely one of Soderbergh's best in my opinion and it's probably his last really big movie that he's done. All the other movies since have been fairly small budget and small scale movies. Oh and quickly a couple things the movie itself is a huge hit

[00:06:51] Oh and quickly a couple things, the sequence in the car where he's changing Daniel Craig and there's no peaking line is hilarious. The scene where they're with Daniel Craig Shane Tatum and Adam Driver and Daniel Craig is like we're dealing with science

[00:07:09] here and it's just a ridiculous sort of homemade bomb that's funny. Where Adam Driver's fake arm gets sucked into the machine. There's so many great little moments that I feel like it doesn't get enough credit for what it is and so yeah, I really enjoy it.

[00:07:24] That is a heavy, heavy 4 out of 5.