Logan Lucky Ending Explained

Logan Lucky ends with the central robbers successfully executing their heist, but one twist in the film’s closing scene confirms that nothing is as it seems. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Logan Lucky follows a former tunnel construction employee, Jimmy Logan, who sets out to pull off a high-stakes heist with his younger brother, sister, and other players essential for executing their plan. Although he meticulously plans the robbery, the team faces many unforeseeable obstacles along the way.

Even when they manage to overcome these challenges, the film’s closing arc initially establishes that they did not end up with any other money they stole during the heist. However, in its final few moments, Logan Lucky reveals that Jimmy was thinking ahead of the curve throughout the heist, ensuring that they ultimately succeeded in securing a good chunk of the stolen money while avoiding legal consequences. Everything falls into place for the crew in the epic heist movie, but Jimmy seems unprepared for an unexpected challenge.

Why Hilary Swank’s Agent Grayson Was At The Bar In Logan Lucky’s Ending

She Did Not Give Up On The Robbery Investigation

All seemingly ends well for Logan’s crew towards the end of Logan Lucky as they celebrate their wins and embrace their newfound relationships at the Duck Tape bar. However, before the movie’s credits start rolling, a woman approaches Adam Driver’s Clyde and asks him to accompany her for a drink. Unbeknownst to Clyde, the woman is FBI Agent Sarah Grayson, who was assigned to solve the robbery. In the film’s closing scene, Grayson tells Clyde she is new to the area but plans to stick around for a while. This could spell trouble for the robbers.

Although Grayson is asked to drop the case, it seems like she wishes to get to the bottom of who was behind the heist. Since many early clues in her investigation pointed towards the Logans, she seems to be undercover in the film’s final moments, determined to find out how they pulled off the robbery. To learn more about the Logans’ heist plan, Grayson seemingly takes one step towards befriending Clyde, hoping that he will eventually reveal his family’s secrets to her.

How Logan Lucky’s Ending Connects To The Logan Family’s Curse

The Family Curse Finally Caught Up With Them

Earlier in the film, Clyde talks about the “Logan Curse,” recalling how his family has always experienced bad luck. In the closing sequence, Daniel Craig’s Joe Bang asks Riley Keough’s Mellie Logan if she believes in the Logan family curse. Mellie denies it, and even Bang seems to agree the curse does not exist. Their newfound belief surrounding the family’s luck makes sense, given how they ended up pulling off the robbery without facing any legal consequences. However, the fact that Agent Grayson continues chasing them establishes that the family may be cursed after all.

The cliffhanger ending might come off as a sequel setup, but it brings a well-rounded conclusion to the film’s story. It establishes that, while the Logans celebrate their wealth, they do not realize that the FBI is still trailing them. This proves that, as much as the Logans would love to believe they have broken their family’s curse, history is seemingly repeating itself.

Related

Channing Tatum’s 10 Best Movies, Ranked

Channing Tatum is a dynamic actor who frequently appears in action, comedy and romance movies. These are some of his best films ranked.

The Logan Brothers’ Heist Plan Explained

The Plan Almost Leaves No Room For Error

Clyde and Jimmy involve three other people in their heist plan: safe-cracker Joe Bang, their younger sister Mellie, and Joe’s brothers Sam and Fish. Since only Joe knows how to break open vaults, the first step in their overarching plan is to break him out of prison. To achieve this, Clyde gets himself arrested by ramming his car into a store. While this happens, Mellie, Sam, and Fish infest the speedway’s tubes to determine which ones lead to the central vault.

To break out of prison for a few hours, Joe Bang convinces some fellow inmates to start a riot as a distraction. He then pretends to be sick and lands himself in the infirmary. At the infirmary, while Clyde convinces a nurse that he can help Bang visit the washroom, the riot in the prison leads to a complete lockdown. In the meantime, Fish and Sam follow their brother’s guide to make a homemade explosive that helps them blow up a cell tower. When the cell tower stops working, vendors at the race are forced to stick to cash payments, leading to a higher influx of cash flow on the speedway.

After entering the tube room through the underground tunnel, Joe puts his vault-breaking skills on full display by creating an explosive using homemade items like gummy bears, bleach, and a dietary salt alternative. After blowing up the tube connected to the vault, they attach it to a vacuum pump that sucks out all the money into trash bags. Although some vendors get suspicious about the smoke from the tubes and guards are sent down to investigate, Earl distracts them by convincing them that the smoke was coming from his cigarette.

Sam and Fish ultimately take the money to Jimmy’s truck, while Joe and Clyde return to prison disguised as firefighters after the inmates start a small fire. Everything seems to have worked out well for the team. However, to everyone’s surprise, Jimmy abandons the money and informs the police about its whereabouts.

Jimmy’s Final Plan To Get Away With The Heist Explained

Jimmy Stays One Step Ahead Of Everyone

On his way out of the tunnels, Clyde runs into Chilblain, who recognizes him from a fight in the film’s opening moments. Clyde punches him before leaving for the prison with Joe Bang. Chilblain later tells Agent Sarah Grayson about his encounter with Clyde, which makes Clyde and his brother, Jimmy, primary suspects in the investigation. To her dismay, she finds no concrete evidence to prove they committed the robbery.

When she tries to question the prison’s warden about whether he noticed anything suspicious on the day of the crime, the warden maintains that no one could have escaped the prison under his watch. The race driver, Dayton White, who Chilblain had sponsored, also denies being an eyewitness to the interaction between Chiblain and Clyde. Ultimately, even the speedway’s president encourages the FBI agents to close the case because he seems satisfied with the insurance claim for the incident.

Although Joe does not hope to get his share of the money after learning that Jimmy abandoned all of it, he is surprised to discover a garbage bag of money buried in his yard. Many other characters, including Sylvia, the lady from the vault, and the inmate who helped Bang, also receive a share of the money. The movie then reveals that Jimmy had secretly stashed a few extra bags of money during the heist and carefully hid them in a nearby dumpster. He also intentionally ensured that Sam and Fish only knew some details of his overarching plan.

Related

Daniel Craig’s 10 Best Movies, Ranked

Daniel Craig is an outstanding actor who has appeared in dozens of movies throughout his career, from James Bond to Benoit Blanc, these are his best.

Logan Lucky’s Hilarious Ocean’s Series Reference Explained

The Central Robbers Are Dubbed “Ocean’s Seven-Eleven”

Logan Lucky interestingly drops a subtle Ocean’s series reference, where news channels label the robbers as “Ocean’s Seven-Eleven” because of the heist. Since director Steven Soderbergh helmed the renowned Ocean’s trilogy before Logan Lucky, the reference is a hilarious callback to his previous work. The nod to the Ocean’s movies not only establishes that Logan Lucky‘s central robbers are the downgraded versions of Danny Ocean’s Crew from the trilogy but also seemingly hints that the Ocean’s trilogy and Logan Lucky potentially unfold in the same universe.

How The Logan Lucky Ending Was Received

The Final Moments Were Formulaic But Endearing

2017’s Logan Lucky was a success for director Steven Soderbergh, especially as far as critics were concerned. The film holds a 92% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the near-perfect rating highlighting just how strong Logan Lucky was, and how it managed to stand out in the somewhat oversaturated subgenre of heist comedies. However, while there were plenty of aspects of the movie that were singled out in reviews as being incredibly strong, the ending of Logan Lucky wasn’t noted as being a highlight of the viewing experience.

This isn’t to say the Logan Lucky ending was seen as bad. Even among the handful of negative reviews, the ending wasn’t mentioned that often. There also weren’t any critics who felt that the final moments were so subpar that they ruined the rest of the movie, as does sometimes happen. Rather, the ending of Logan Lucky was seen as a formulaic and by-the-numbers climax to a heist story – though, in several cases, this was also highlighted as a strength, especially among those who praised Logan Lucky overall as a spectacular celebration of the heist movie subgenre.

This was the general consensus when it came to the plot of Logan Lucky in general, including the ending. Screenwriter Rebecca Blunt’s story didn’t really aim for innovation when it came to the heist movie blueprint, but this didn’t negatively impact the overall viewing experience. Writing for The New York Times, reviewer A.O. Scott explains why Logan Lucky didn’t need to include any eyebrow-raising twists on the formula to be a thoroughly enjoyable ride:

There are some dandy little surprises in store that I’m not inclined to spoil. Not that the plot [of Logan Lucky] is anything earth-shakingly original. “Logan Lucky” sticks to the “Oceans” template so faithfully that someone makes a joke about it. Who cares? The pleasures of the heist genre are always procedural and specific. These movies are all the same, but also always different because of the particular mix of personalities and circumstances. What they celebrate, above all, is the combination of craft, planning and problem-solving ingenuity that can turn a job of work into a work of art.

The view that Logan Lucky and its ending opt to deliver a perfected familiarity instead of risking possibly-unwanted innovation is echoed in many reviews too – all of which celebrate the decision. For example, Empire‘s Andrew Lowry pointed out how refreshing a story like Logan Lucky‘s actually is in the modern cinematic landscape:

There’s an unavoidable feeling that Soderbergh is playing the hits here — although it’s odd how much a character-driven crime flick is now such a rarity it feels like an exercise in turn-of-the-millennium retro.

How Logan Lucky’s Ending Sets Up A Sequel

It Sets Up Another Game Of Cat-And-Mouse

Although the movie has a fairly conclusive ending, Hilary Swank’s character’s appearance in the bar suggests she will not stop investigating the robbery until she finds out what happened. With this closing plot development, the second Logan Lucky movie could feature a game of cat-and-mouse between Agent Grayson and the Logan crew. At the same time, it could also walk through another heist the Logan crew must pull off to finally have enough money to sustain themselves. Unfortunately, since Logan Lucky flopped at the box office despite earning critical acclaim, it seems unlikely it will get a sequel.

Logan Lucky is a comedy-heist film by Steven Soderbergh, the director behind the Ocean’s Eleven series. The Logans are a blue-collar family from the hills of West Virginia, and their clan has been famous for its bad luck for nearly 90 years. But the conniving Jimmy Logan decides it’s time to turn the family’s luck around, and with a bit of help from his friends, the “Redneck Robbers,” he plans to steal $14 million from the Charlotte Motor Speedway on the busiest race day of the year.

Release Date

August 18, 2017

Writers

Jules Asner

Runtime

118 Minutes

Budget

$29 million

Expand