While not in a league with Oscar winner “Traffic” or the breakthrough effort many years ago, “Sex, Lies and Videotape”, this is a fun caper film with a solid cast.
It revolves around the Logan family and their predisposition for bad luck. From broken marriages to lost jobs, to serious war injuries, the list goes on and on.
Jimmy Logan, played with ease by Channing Tatum, loses his mining job due to a bum knee he got starring as a local football hero. What to do? His West Virginia instincts go to work in developing a plan to rob the “bank” which is the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Tatum is joined by a solid cast with Adam Driver as his one armed brother, and none other than James Bond (Daniel Craig) who is wonderful as “Joe Bang”, a crazy bomb expert brought on from prison to pull off the heist.
The film has more than a few laughs, plenty of action, and enough twists and turns to make it fun. Hilary Swank joins the action
as an FBI agent which hints at a sequel ala Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy. Given the Speedway setting, there are plenty of cameos from LeAnn Rimes to Darrel Waltrip and Jeff Gordon. Even race car driver Kyle Busch gets to play a State Trooper.
All in all, I found this film to be a lot of fun and well worth seeing. It gets a bit bogged down from time to time, and struggles a bit to find an ending. Nonetheless, if you get hit with a rainy afternoon, slip out to catch this one.
