Logan Lucky Information

Logan Lucky is a 2017 American heist comedy film directed, shot and edited by Steven Soderbergh and written by Rebecca Blunt. It features an ensemble cast consisting of Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston and Sebastian Stan, and follows three siblings who plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600.

The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised the cast and Soderbergh's direction, and was released on August 18, 2017, by Fingerprint Releasing and Bleecker Street.

Plot

Jimmy Logan, a blue collar laborer whose once promising football career was ruined by a injury that left him with a permanent limp, is laid off from his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway due to liability issues. While visiting his ex-wife Bobbi Joe to pick up their daughter for a beauty pageant, he learns that Bobbi and her new husband, a wealthy car dealership owner, intend to move to Lynchburg, making it even harder for him to visit.

Angry, Jimmy goes to a bar run by his brother Clyde, an Iraq War veteran who, on account of losing part of his left arm, is obligated to wear a prosthetic hand. Max Chilblain, a pretentious British businessman, and his friends arrive and insult Clyde before getting in a fight with Jimmy, leading to the former setting fire to their car with a molotov cocktail. On his way out, Jimmy yells "cauliflower", which Clyde recognizes as a old code word from when they used to commit crimes as young boys. The next day, Jimmy explains his plan: Using his knowledge of the Speedway's new pneumatic system for moving money, the two will access the system during an upcoming car show, when security is lax, and siphon off the money.

Clyde agrees to the plan, and he and Jimmy recruit Joe Bang, a convicted safecracker, Joe's brothers Sam and Fish, and their own sister Mellie. As Joe insists that he be returned to prison as soon as the heist is complete, Clyde gets himself incarcerated. Mellie, Sam, and Fish infest the Speedway's main vault with cockroaches, forcing it to be cleaned and allowing them to measure it. While gathering supplies, Jimmy meets Sylvia, a traveling physician who runs a mobile clinic in desperate need of donations. He learns that, due to construction being finished ahead of schedule, his original plan will not work, forcing him to change the timing of the heist to instead occur during the upcoming Coca-Cola 600 race on Memorial Day weekend.

As part of their plan, Joe and Clyde arrange for the prison's inmates to stage a "riot", allowing them to escape through the infirmary and hide under a delivery truck. They are picked up by Mellie in a stolen sports car, and taken to the Speedway, while Sam and Fish sabotage the electrical grid, forcing all vendors to switch to cash. Using improvised explosives, Joe blasts open the main pneumatic pipe and begins vacuuming up the money. The staff notices and security guards are dispatched to investigate, but a diversion set up by Jimmy prevents them from discovering the heist. Complications arise, however, when Clyde loses his hand during the vacuuming and he and Joe are spotted by Chilblain and his sponsored NASCAR driver Dayton White while making their way back to prison. Nevertheless, the job is a complete success, and Jimmy makes it to his daughter's pageant just as she performs a rendition of his favorite song, "Take Me Home, Country Roads". Feeling guilty, Jimmy ditches his truck with the money at a gas station and alerts the police so they can retrieve it.

In the aftermath, FBI agent Sarah Grayson is assigned to investigate the heist, but due to the collective incompetence of the prison authorities, Chilblain (who had a falling out with Dayton, when the latter crashes in the race), and the Speedway administration, the case is quickly closed. Joe is released and returns to his old home, where he eventually finds part of the money under his yard. It is then revealed that, during the heist, Jimmy purposely separated several bags from the rest of the loot and divided them between his associates and friends, while leaving the rest to throw off any potential investigations. Now working as a Lowe's salesman, Jimmy happily reunites with his family at Clyde's bar, where they and the rest of the gang share drinks. Clyde doesn't recognize one of the participants, who turns out to be Grayson continuing her investigation undercover.

Cast

• Channing Tatum as Jimmy Logan, Clyde"?s older brother
• Adam Driver as Clyde Logan, Jimmy"?s younger brother
• Seth MacFarlane as Max Chilblain
• Riley Keough as Mellie Logan, Clyde and Jimmy's sister
• Katie Holmes as Bobbie Jo Logan Chapman, Jimmy"?s ex-wife
• Katherine Waterston as Sylvia Harrison
• Dwight Yoakam as Warden Burns
• Sebastian Stan as Dayton White
• Brian Gleeson as Sam Bang, Joe"?s older brother
• Jack Quaid as Fish Bang, Joe"?s younger brother
• Hilary Swank as Special Agent Sarah Grayson
• Daniel Craig as Joe Bang
• Jesco White as Himself
• David Denman as Moody Chapman
• Jim O'Heir as Cal
• Macon Blair as Special Agent Brad Noonan

Six NASCAR drivers make cameo appearances in the film. Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch play West Virginia state troopers, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano are security guards, Kyle Larson is a limo driver, and Ryan Blaney is a delivery boy.

Production

Soderbergh's 2013 film, Side Effects, was intended to be his final theatrical film. Soderbergh has said that he was initially given the Logan Lucky script in hopes that he could recommend a suitable director for the project, but that he enjoyed reading the script and decided to take it on for himself, specifically noting that it was an "anti-glam version of an Ocean's movie". He told Entertainment Weekly, "Nobody dresses nice. Nobody has nice stuff. They have no money. They have no technology. It's all rubber band technology." At the time Soderbergh was also theorizing a new distribution model and felt that the script gave him the perfect opportunity to do so.

There has been speculation regarding the identity of the film's screenwriter, Rebecca Blunt. Soderbergh has claimed that Blunt is a real person living in the United Kingdom and some of the film's cast exchanged emails with her, but none have met her, and she has no previous film credits. Sources have speculated that "Rebecca Blunt" is actually a pseudonym for Soderbergh's wife Jules Asner, for comedian John Henson or for Soderbergh himself.

The film was announced in February 2016 along with the announcement of Channing Tatum's casting. Variety initially reported that Matt Damon was also to star, although Deadline.com reported the same day that Damon was not involved, but rather Michael Shannon. On May 11, Shannon had to leave the project due to scheduling conflicts, and Adam Driver and Seth MacFarlane entered negotiations to star. On May 26, Driver and MacFarlane were confirmed to star, with Daniel Craig, Katherine Heigl and Riley Keough finalizing deals to join the cast. That same month, it was announced NASCAR would be collaborating on the film. In June 2016, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston and Jack Quaid were cast in the film. On August 15, 2016, David Denman joined the cast. On August 22, 2016, it was reported that Jim O'Heir had joined the cast. On August 31, 2016, Sebastian Stan joined the cast.

Filming

On August 24, 2016, Logan Lucky began filming. The film was scheduled to be shot over 35 days.

Release

Fingerprint Releasing and Bleecker Street released the film on August 18, 2017. Logan Lucky is the first film distributed by Fingerprint Releasing, founded by Soderbergh, and spent about $20 million on marketing.

Box office

Logan Lucky was released alongside The Hitman's Bodyguard and was projected to gross $7-9 million from 3,008 theaters in its opening weekend, although Soderbergh stated a debut of $15 million would be needed to be considered a success. The film made $2.8 million on its first day (including $525,000 from Thursday night previews). It went on to open to $8.1 million, finishing 3rd at the box office behind The Hitman's Bodyguard and Annabelle: Creation.

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "High-octane fun that's smartly assembled without putting on airs, Logan Lucky marks a welcome end to Steven Soderbergh's retirement -- and proves he hasn't lost his ability to entertain." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a score of 78 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave the film a positive review, writing, "Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky is a high-spirited, low-down blast." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, saying, "This is a good-times film that doesn't put on airs, dress to impress or pretend to be something it isn't. It just aims to please and does a pretty good job of it." Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, praising the smooth direction and efficiency of storytelling Soderbergh brought to the film, stating that other than him wishing for more scenes to give its "oddball characters" more depth, "[Logan Lucky is] a precision-tooled entertainment made by experts, and sometimes more than that. Watching it is like finding money in the pocket of a coat that you haven"?t worn in years."

Possible sequel

Bleecker Street has first rights to distribute a sequel, should the film prove successful and be put into development.