Logan Lucky reminds us why we love heist movies

Steven Soderbergh knows how to make the off-kilter details of an elaborate robbery feel very satisfying

Channing Tatum, Riley Keough, and Adam Driver in 'Logan Lucky.'
(Image credit: Michael Tacket / Fingerprint Releasing | Bleecker Street)

There's a moment early in Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky when Jimmy Logan, played by Channing Tatum, is called into his boss's office after a long day operating construction machinery fixing up the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. The boss, in his best casual-yet-firm voice, asks Jimmy to shut the door behind him.

As Tatum does this, the slightest trace of a disappointed realization — an acknowledgment that he knows, as the audience does, what's about to happen — crosses his face. He's about to be let go, and sure enough, that's what happens. It's a stock situation. But not, somehow, a stock moment. Tatum so perfectly conveys his sudden dread, and the movie so steadfastly refuses to milk the aftermath of the act, that the predictability of shut the door/have a seat suddenly feels attentive, even, in its sad little way, alive.

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Jesse Hassenger

Jesse Hassenger's film and culture criticism has appeared in The Onion's A.V. Club, Brooklyn Magazine, and Men's Journal online, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, where he also writes fiction, edits textbooks, and helps run SportsAlcohol.com, a pop culture blog and podcast.