Blu-ray

Struggling to make ends meet after losing his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) devises a plan to rob the vault at his former employer with the aid of his sister Mellie (Riley Keough) and one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver). To pull off the robbery they'll also need incarcerated explosives expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), which necessitates first breaking him out of prison and then smuggling him back in without anybody noticing he was missing…

Having 'retired' from filmmaking in 2013 after the Hitchcockian medical thriller Side Effects, director Steven Soderbergh's return to the bigscreen finds him tackling a subject that he's already very familiar with. However, while it may be yet another heist movie, Logan Lucky is like the antithesis of his earlier Ocean's… trilogy. Those previous films were big and brash pieces of cinema that surrounded their characters with glitz and glamour; Logan Lucky is a more subtle and down-to-earth comic-drama whose oddball characters have more real-world charm and prove more sympathetic than Danny Ocean and his sharp-suited crew.

Compared to other heist flicks, Logan Lucky is a pretty low-stakes, easy-going affair. But Soderbergh, writer Rebecca Blunt and the wonderful cast pulls it off in such an approachable and enjoyable way that the film still sucks you in and leaves you gripped.

Picture: Given how hit or miss StudioCanal's Blu-ray encoding has been over the years, we're happy to say that there are no problems with Logan Lucky's 2.40:1 1080p presentation. Indeed, with its combination of crisp delineation, vivid colours, accurate black levels and lack of encoding-related issues, it may just be the best-looking Blu-ray the label has ever released.
Picture rating: 5/5

Audio: It's not hugely surprising that Logan Lucky's DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix isn't the most dynamic soundtrack you'll ever hear. That said, it still makes convincing use of its speaker bed for ambient effect; the most striking example being the heist scenes in Chapters 8 and 9 where the muffled sound of the NASCAR race taking place overhead runs across the rear speakers every so often.
Audio rating: 4/5

Extras: Anybody hoping to hear from Soderbergh about why he ended his self-imposed 'retirement' and why he chose Logan Lucky to do it will have to look elsewhere. Indeed, the only extra features on this Blu-ray are two fairly forgettable deleted scenes – the one positive is that Universal's earlier US release fared no better in this department.
Extras rating: 0.5/5

We say: An unpretentious comic-drama that will make you happy Soderbergh returned to filmmaking.

Logan Lucky, Studiocanal, Region B BD, £25
HCC VERDICT: 3.5/5