Author: kbarrillea

SHORT TAKE: Logan Lucky is Steven Soderburgh’s tongue-in-cheek retelling of his own Ocean’s Eleven franchise as well as an oblique stab at the Hollywood establishment.

LONG TAKE: Rex Reed of the New York Film Critics’ Circle hated Logan Lucky and had some very unkind words to say about it. Toe fungus was one phrase he applied, which only goes to prove Logan Lucky WORKS. Nothing against Rex Reed but it’s just that he fell for it. Surprising too as Reed was born in Texas and got his journalism degree from the same LSU that Soderburgh attended. Apparently while Soderburgh embraces his roots, Reed fails to appreciate them. Logan Lucky demonstrates the perils of underestimating someone and – going out on a limb here – might just be an autobiographical parable for Soderburgh’s professional life. For a full explanation you will have to read below in the BIG SPOILERS section.

I can’t find another example of a director who made a feature film spoof of one of his own movies. There have been a lot of spoofs – Airplane, Hot Shots, Scary Movie, Naked Gun, and pretty much anything Mel Brooks wrote. But Logan Lucky may be unique.

SOME SPOILERS

 +  Logan Lucky is basically Beverly Hillbillies meets Ocean’s Eleven. Even the names have the same ambient rhythm to them. Ocean’s Eleven sounds backwards, as though it should be Eleven Oceans, until you realize the intent is to describe the Eleven person team of a man whose last name is Ocean. Logan Lucky is the same way, with the adjective in the back, but without any explanation, except that it is a homage to its predecessor. To be sure we get the connection, Soderburgh has a newscaster comment on the crime: “People are calling it [the heist] Ocean’s Seven-Eleven”.

Truth be told the Clampett family in the Beverly Hillbillies were often underestimated too. Uncle Jedd had a lot of home spun wisdom which often benefitted the swells in their neighborhood. And the example the Clampetts set of morality, self sufficiency, kindness and generosity was mostly unappreciated but was the backbone of why this show, for all its goofiness, was so popular. They may have been hicks but they had more sense and were happier than all of their neighbors put together.

At first I was not sure if I should be offended by the bald faced home spun backwoods characters Soderburgh conjures. But as time goes on you realize he has a lot more respect for West Virginaians than it might appear. It’s almost as if he is saying it isn’t just the college educated affluent upper class snobs who can plan and execute a clever heist. All it takes is a motive, some common sense and a flair for planning. Let’s put aside for the moment the moral question of our protagonists stealing millions. There is, you’ll find without giving too much away, an aim of poetic justice, hinted at briefly when recruiting two of the most unlikely techs you’ll ever meet, which tit for tat ending pays off at the end.

I, personally, approached the movie with great trepidation due to the casting choice of Daniel “James Bond” Craig as a red neck bank robber explosives expert. But, shockingly, my concerns were unfounded as I quickly forgot Craig’s character was anyone other than a tatooed, cocky good ol’ boy with a brilliant knack for getting his job done, and far more self-discipline than you’d give him credit. Again someone we, the audience, immediately underestimates on first sight.

And there’s one scene near the end at a child’s talent show which establishes Soderburgh’s intent to recognize the beauty and dignity of West Virginians despite his teasing and tweaking.

BIG SPOILERS FOR BOTH LOGAN LUCKY AND OCEAN’S ELEVEN

As unlikely as it may seem I believe Logan Lucky is an autobiographic parable of Soderburgh’s professional life.

The movie starts with Jimmy (Tatum Channing) a hard working schmo amiably divorced and devoted father who runs a bulldozer in an underground construction site beneath the NASCAR race track. The opening scene neatly, with simple dialogue, proves Jimmy is intelligent and capable, a good dad and loves his home state as he chats with his little girl while fixing a car. It is obvious this is a familiar scene as she casually hands him the specific tools he needs like a well trained nurse to a surgeon. They talk about his favorite song – John Denver’s “Take me Home Country Roads”. He does a good job at work but because of a bad knee and the fear of future liability the insurance executives for the construction company insist he be let go.

Soderburgh is a Southern boy – born in Atlanta and grew up in Baton Rouge, LA – his stint in Hollywood as an editor was short lived and it wasn’t until his indie films started making money that the industry powers started paying attention. But after a while Soderburgh again left, citing lack of creative and financial control. In short, Soderburgh, much like our protagonist was misjudged, underappreciated, disrespected, underestimated and dismissed.

Jimmy acquires two of his team members under the pretext that he is planning this heist on moral grounds. Jimmy is lying, but much like Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven, Jimmy has an ulterior motive he is unwilling to share with them which, in his mind, truly is a just goal. In Ocean’s Eleven Danny’s true end game is getting Tess back by proving to her that her boyfriend, Terry Benedict, doesn’t really love her. In Logan Lucky Jimmy just wants the money he is owed from the work he would have done had the insurance company not unjustly ordered him fired. In both cases there is an ulterior motive known only to the leader.

In the case of Soderburgh’s life he has reconstructed the anchor in his Ocean’s franchise into what at first glance appears to be a parody which makes fun of both Ocean’s Eleven and Southern “hicks” but in fact does neither. As the movie progresses we come to understand that the people who are labeled as dumb and appear slow have a real genius to their methods. The apparently inane “robbery to-do list” Jimmy makes in planning his heist which includes: “s*** happens, don’t get greedy, walk away,” all come to necessary fruition. The pretty female of the bunch and Jimmy's sister, Mellie, (Kelley Keoughh) is a hairdresser but knows everything about cars and has the skills of a class A transporter. Joe Bang (Craig)  (a – what else – demolition expert) appears to have the IQ of someone who has fallen on their head one too many times. But he explains how bleach and gummy bears with heat will produce the explosion they need, using an improvised chalkboard on which he draws balanced chemical equations.

The characters read like a Cohen Brothers movie. For example Clyde Logan (Adam "Kylo Ren" Driver), Jimmy’s Iraq veteran brother, is called one armed by an obnoxious patron at the bar in which he tends. In response Clyde proceeds to describe with specificity that he is one handed and partially forearmed in a dry deadpan – just before Jimmy beats the tar out of the offending customer. When Clyde sees his brother’s “robbery to-do list” he points out that he is not a criminal but that since Jimmy cooked his bacon almost burnt just the way he likes it AND it is obvious by the list that his brother is trying to exercise a certain amount of organizational skills, he will hear him out. This is pure Cohen, director brothers who also create characters often far deeper than they initially seem.

Like Ocean’s Eleven it appears as though the money has been destroyed or lost but when reviewed later from an alternate POV we find out what ACTUALLY happened. (Clyde: Are we going to trust our lives to them? Jimmy: We only tell them what they need to know.)

And finally the only ones to get hurt are those who are the “real” bad guys. In the case of Ocean’s it is Benedict, the casino owner. In Logan Lucky it is the insurance company. We find out that Jimmy returned “all” the money stolen in a truck deliberately abandoned by him. However, due to the high volume of the concession income during the race and some subterfuge on Jimmy’s part, there was an accounting opportunity for the race track owners to get a substantial amount of “lost” money from —- the insurance company. Unbeknowst to the rest of the team Jimmy squirreled a separate pile away to be hidden until the FBI agents, who he knew would inevitably be all over this case, gave up on them as suspects. What his other, less trusted teammates didn't know wouldn't hurt any of them. As he explained to Clyde he knew they were all free when the FBI no longer paid for his phone which they were tapping. And it was only after he knew they were in the clear that he distributed the shares of the hidden funds. Ultimately the one who was robbed was the insurance company who stole Jimmy’s job in the first place, starting the chain of events for this movie. And everyone who aids Jimmy in his quest gets a piece of the loot – whether they knew they were helping or no.

A TRUE Robin Hood story – not stealing from the rich to give to the poor but RETURNING money stolen from the poor by the original thief.

In the end the Southern hicks who everyone wrote off use their “ability” to be underestimated like a super power – flying so low under the radar that no one can believe they did it. And the losers are those who tried to exploit them. Soderburgh finds his last laugh in the popularity of his movies despite the lack of support from the Hollywood crowd. Like Jimmy, he is a Southern boy who plucks the prizes from the reach of the establishment swells whose view is obscured by the very nose down which they look.

Almost as if Rex Reed wanted to hand me proof that he didn’t “get” the movie because he has BECOME one of the Hollywood establishment, Reed specifically points out that he didn’t think the title Logan Lucky made sense. He never saw the deliberate grammatical connection (what looks like an adjective coming after a noun) or the literary syntax rhythm to the title of its predecessor. It’s a joke Mr. Reed doesn’t get because he has boxed himself up inside the institutional Hollywood structure.

If you like Soderburgh you’ll like this movie. If you liked Ocean’s Eleven you’ll like this movie.

But Logan Lucky is pretty good all by itself.

And it just goes to show you – it isn’t wise to underestimate us Southern folk.

Have you ever seen the movie Rashomon? It is the story of a rape or seduction, murder or honorable duel, depending on from whom you hear the story. The film is told from four different points of view: a deceased Samurai – via a medium, his wife, the bandit who either seduced or raped her, and a woodcutter who viewed the entire event from afar but has no vested interest in any of the other three parties.

Detroit could have been told in this fashion. By director Katherine Bigelow’s own end credits admission there is no conclusive evidence indicating what really happened at the Algiers Hotel the night 3 men were found dead after police stormed the hotel in search of a sniper. She could have chosen a Rashomon approach. Instead she chose to film yet another hit piece against men whose job it is to risk their lives in protection of others, including hers.

In The Hurt Locker she filmed a movie whose plot relied on so many inaccuracies of military procedure, assignments and combat protocol as to be deemed openly disrespectful by military representatives.

In Detroit Bigelow proceeds from a similar unfortunate approach. Choosing a documentary style of film making that implies confidence of accuracy where there is none is deceptive and disgraceful. In addition, Ms Bigelow falls back on vulgar and ugly stereotypes of black men who spend their time drinking and whoring during a riot playing out only blocks away, who are dumb enough to shoot a starter pistol at National Guardsmen, and are overall sniveling and cowardly. And all the authority figures, from city and state police to military, regardless of race, are either borderline psychotic sadists or collaborators to abuses.

Bigelow signals contempt of her subject matter, the people involved and her audience by beginning the movie literally with a poorly drawn cartoon history of the socio-political and historic events which led up to the Detroit riots of 1967 as though she did not believe the movie goers would understand a more sophisticated approach. Names were changed, alleged actions by different people were attributed to a single person, and events were fabricated. When things are "fabricated" in something presented to us as a documentary, there is a word for that. LIE. Ms. Bigelow LIED to put forth an agenda which can do nothing other than promote racial tensions. To me THAT is bigotry. And not a half-century old bigotry but bigotry TODAY against people of both races.

And her take on the events are full of ludicrous plotholes. One telling example: Her contention in the film is that someone shot a starter pistol out of the Algiers Hotel at Guardsmen in the middle of the night at the height of the tensions during the riot. Logic dictates that either someone shot a starter pistol, in an act of criminal stupidity, out of the Algiers Hotel window or there was a sniper at the hotel. If, in fact, it was only a foolish stunt with a blank shooting pistol, why, when lined up against a wall by police and military, did the hotel partiers not say this when asked where the weapon "of any kind" was? The man, according to Ms. Bigelow, who shot a harmless starter pistol, was lying dead on the floor in the next room having charged the incoming officers (another unbelievable move by a character in the story) so there was zero point in not telling the interrogating police this. It stretches credibility beyond breaking that no one would have told the officers, espcially after a prolonged series of interrogations, but would instead subject themselves to beatings and torture. This point alone, upon which the rest of the entire movie depends, puts all of Bigelow’s conjectures into serious doubt.

The rest of the movie continues with assumption on assumptions that can not be verified but which are put forth as Gospel truths.

Tellingly, the first one-half hour or so of the movie, which portrays events which are well documented – how the riots began, who were involved, the premature termination of a singing contest – was fairly even handedly presented. But this is only a set up to create the illusion of credibility for the rest of the story where there is none. When she places her characters in an unverifiable situation her biases become conspicuous.

Further, her creation of this questionable narrative based on a 50 year old event comes on the heels of current events where police have been targets for assassination in REAL life.

Ms. Bigelow, you should be ashamed of yourself. Everyone else should give Detroit a miss.                                    Go get Rashomon and see how a really good movie is made.

SHORT TAKE: An intense and powerful but still intimate experience of the historic Operation Dynamo rescue at Dunkirk of over 300,000 desperately trapped Allied soldiers by mostly civilian volunteers told from all three perspectives of land, air and sea.

LONG TAKE: We’re all the way back home and I’m sitting behind my computer but my heart is still pounding. Dunkirk is one of those films, along with the likes of Hacksaw Ridge, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List and Lone Survivor which you owe to those who endured the experience to bear witness to what they endured.

I THINK I HAVE AVOIDED ALL SPOILERS – I’m only referencing things you could see in the trailer.

Dunkirk, lest you not know, was the "Miracle" of Operation Dynamo in which one-third of a million soldiers were rescued from advancing German forces from the sandy shores of the bombed out and abandoned seaside French town of the same name. The rescue took place primarily not by a military cavalry, nor by a charismatic leader or even by the Avengers, but by….civilians in over 700 private vessels including yachts, fishing boats, personnel ships, tugboats, hospital ships, fireboats, trawlers, lifeboats, pleasure craft, a paddle steamer, the River Mersey Ferry, and other small ships, the smallest of which was only 15 feet long, several of which have been preserved in museums and a dozen of which are actually used IN the movie! These unnamed intrepid incredibly courageous crews all made their way across the channel from Ramsgate, England to either bring their boys directly home or ferry them from the beaches to the destroyers waiting offshore. Many were simply weekend sailors, fishermen and other private citizens – including older men, boys and women – who responded to the call for help. All braved death to bring their own home. The tagline is quite accurate. When 400,000 men couldn’t get home, home came for them – literally.

Directed by Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight, Interstellar and Inception), this incredible 10 week episode is told in telescoped perspective, hopping back and forth in time to accommodate the fact that the three main dovetailing stories cover different spans of time. A week in the case of the soldiers stranded on the beach, a day for the sailors who came to pluck them away from death and mere hours for the few air force able and allowed to provide air cover. As a result some events are told once and then retold from a different character’s perspective. It can be a little confusing but if you pay attention, as you should, this challenging POV is artfully and satisfyingly crafted by Nolan to tell the story with a depth you might not otherwise have been able to get.

Some background is needed to understand the scope of desperation created by the situation. 400,000 men were surrounded, hopelessly outnumbered, gunned and flanked by the Germans. German planes straffed and bombed the helpless men on the beach. America was not yet in the war. Most of the Allied air force were either otherwise committed or held back in anticipation of the Battle over Britain to come. The destroyers were held back for the same reason. But without these men, England was done for as they made up the bulk of their army.

Although placed in harm’s way by a disastrous military defeat, the fortitude and courage required by these brave people to face imminent brutal death to rescue their own was testament to the British Spirit required to win the war and inspirational world wide. And even though they were only three-quarters successful these civvie sailors managed to multiply the most optimistic predictions of the Operation Dynamo organizers by TEN TIMES! Headquarters hoped to save 30-45,000. The British citizens rescued over 330,000.

I do not believe any of the individual characters represent one individual person but each represent an amalgam of heroes. Kenneth Branagh puts his stamp on the military leadership who stayed behind to provide order to the soul destroying chaos as Commander Bolton. Tom Hardy (Inception and Dark Knights Rises) and Jack Lowden are air force Spitfire pilots who provide what protection they can against the German Stukas for the "Little Boats" and the men on the beach. Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) as Mr. Dawson comes closest to portraying an individual – a thinly veiled Charles Lightoller, the second officer from the Titanic, who with his son and his friend insisted on taking his own ship across. Much is seen through the eyes of Fionn Whitehead as Tommy, a young soldier cut off from his company, terrified and stranded, risking everything but his own conscience to get home. Cillian Murphy (Inception and Dark Knight) portrays a shell shocked young officer plucked from the sea by Dawson. Michael Caine does a voice cameo you have to have a quick ear to catch and there’s a point of film trivia which gives this a bit of poetic symmetry.

Although merely referenced in Atonement, the classic Mrs. Miniver, Their Finest (Hour and a Half), and The Snow Goose – the latter a very old Hallmark Show starring Richard Harris and based on a short story by Paul Gallico (Poseidon Adventure), the story of Dunkirk was only filmed once before. Appropriately enough it was called — Dunkirk. Made in 1958 it follows, on the Dunkirk end, much like Desperate Journey, a small group of soldiers led by John (Swiss Family Robinson) Mill’s character Tubby, who trek from a mission to blow up a bridge to the shores of Dunkirk. On the British end we root for two weekend civilian pleasure sailors portrayed by Bernard Lee and a very young THE Sir Lord Richard Attenborough (acted in Jurassic Park, Doctor Doolittle, Sand Pebbles, the Great Escape, and Branagh’s Hamlet, directed Chaplin, Magic, Gandhi, A Chorus Line, and Shadowlands, and a life long friend of the previously mentioned John Mills). The 2017 Dunkirk cast includes none other than Sir Attenborough’s grandson, Will.

If I have only one gripe, it is that Nolan's personal take blunts the vastness of the Herculean effort that was required. At no time did I really get the sense of almost half a million men stranded on the beach or the hundreds and HUNDREDS of ships which answered the call to aid. What Nolan has done is show a portion of it from the point of view of a few people. A few shots show a LOT of people but does not really convey the scope of almost a half million men trapped on a beach. I can't help thinking that even one aerial shots of beaches showing the enormity of the task and the sheer number of boats who came to their aid might have hit the right "awe-ness" aspect this event deserves, much like the railroad scene in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett walks through the sea of wounded.

But that's enough of the quibbles. I have only mentioned the highlights of the movie’s virtues. There is much more to credit it in the visuals, the storytelling, and the performances.

This film is a hour and 45 minutes of unrelenting tension but goes by like a snap of the fingers as you are drawn into these historic events through these characters’ experiences. As one of the characters alludes – if they have done nothing else in their life but this they will have contributed much.

I’m as big a fan of comic book heroes as the next geek, but every generation should have real heroes to look up to like these men and women who risked their lives to pluck their own from the gates of Hell and bring them home. And Nolan does a beautiful job of giving homage to them all.