Heist movie with heart

MOVIE: Logan Lucky STARRING: Channing Tatum RATING: M

DON’T judge a fallen football star by his rusty pick-up truck.

That’s the lesson to be had from this hillbilly heist movie, delivered in a distinctive, West Virginia drawl.

Having successfully pulled off three Danny Ocean cons, director Steven Soderbergh is looking for a new bank vault to plunder (he’s also producing the all-female spin-off Ocean’s Eight).

Logan Lucky turns out to be a playfully subversive variation on the theme.

To pinch a line from the film itself, this redneck crime comedy could be retitled Ocean’s 7/Eleven (newscasters coin the term “hee-haw heroes” to describe the mysterious gang that captures the popular imagination with its audacious daylight robbery.)

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is the unlikely mastermind of the multimillion-dollar racetrack heist, staged during one of the biggest days on the NASCAR calendar.

The divorced father-of-one has been down on his luck ever since a busted knee put paid to a promising football career – his one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver), an Iraqi war vet, attributes their bad luck to the Logan family curse.

When Jimmy is unfairly sacked from a work site because of his dodgy leg, he figures it’s about time he turned his fortunes around.