No Clint, it didn’t make my day . . .

The 15.17 To Paris (15) Verdict: Try to miss it

CLINT EASTWOOD has given us something remarkable here, namely the impression that after an illustrious directing career stretching back almost 50 years, he has forgotten the rudiments of film-making.

The 15:17 To Paris is disastrously undermined by Eastwood’s ‘Big Idea’: to cast, as the three back-packing Americans who overcame a gun-toting jihadist on a train from Amsterdam to Paris three years ago . . . themselves.

In truth, the trio — Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler —are not as hopelessly wooden as they might have been. Even so, the novelty of them reprising their own adventure for the camera quickly subsides.

Their trip around Europe, prior to the eventful train journey, makes the film look like a promising entrant in a Most Banal Travel Documentary competition.

Only a psychic, or possibly a cinema audience increasingly failing to stifle giggles, could possibly guess that all this will end with them being awarded the Legion d’Honneur in a special ceremony at the Elysee Palace.

To pep things up, Eastwood keeps flashing forward to the train incident, but gradually the suspicion gathers momentum that far from celebrating an act of considerable courage, his horribly misconceived movie will end up devaluing it.