DANIEL CRAIG AND ADAM DRIVER LOGAN LUCKYLogan vs. Good Time: the weekend's tough choice.See what Mick LaSalle, the San Francisco
Chronicle's long-time moive critic says about
Logan Lucky. He gets it exactly right:
'Logan' Viewers Aren't in Luck, by Mick LaSalle.I'm in a quandary about this weekend's most exciting two new screen offerings. Both are robbery thrillers of sorts - of very different sorts.
Good Time, by the Safdie brothers - which isn't - is a very hard watch, but it takes Robert Pattinson and us to a challenging new place. Some critics have said it's his best performance yet. He was challenged in
The Rover too; maybe not many have seen that. I like Cronenberg's cool
Cosmopolis better; it's a letter-perfect recreation of the Don De Lillo novel as well. Anyway, one can't recommend to anyone looking for a good time going to see
Good Time. Manohla Dargis must have been hypnotized by Pattinson's charm at Cannes to call it "pure cinematic pleasure." Nonetheless this is intense and powerful stuff and it's a pleasant surprise when by a fluke something so edgy gets wide distribution.
One can grudgingly recommend
Logan Lucky Soderbergh's return to the big screen after his premature renunciation a few years ago. I have to admit it left me with a pleasant feeling. There is much sweetness in it - particularly between Channing Tatum's redneck and his little girl, and there's pleasingly little violence or meanness in this crime story. But the trouble is, it's not a satisfying caper flick or anything lke vintage Soderbergh. He seems to be confusing himself with the Coen brothers, but he just doesn't have their dark edge. He also doesn't let us in enough on the robbery plan to follow it suspensefully as it unfolds: he just makes us passive observers. I did enjoy Daniel Craig laying on the ridiculously cornpone accent. Seeing James Bond as a pudgy jailbird robbery expert - the Coeniest touch of all - is pretty rich.