Logan Lucky

Heist movies are like detective novels. It's not the crime that intrigues so much as the plot and the plan. How they did it is as potent as who. It's the dead man in the locked room syndrome. Unpicking the mystery and collating coincidences is what it's all about.

Logan Lucky is dyslexic. What's wrong with Lucky Logan? What's wrong with the movie? Well...

Jimmy (Channing Tatum on leave from his hunky American Dad roles) and Clyde (Adam Driver, top pick from this year's Hollywood newbies) are brothers. The venue is West Virginia where the accent is as thick as soup.

Jimmy loses his job. He is told, "We'll have to let you go." No reason given. The wife is not amused. Financial meltdown is forecast. What's next? A white trashed mobile home?

Clyde is bartender at the local tavern. He's permanently depressed, or looks it, and fed up having to explain why he has only one arm.

"Hand!" he snaps. "I lost my hand."

He has a stump and an artificial replacement. Does it matter? This is not about disability, neither is it about unemployment in Trump County. It's about stealing big money during a NASCAR race in North Carolina.

The plan is highly sophisticated - these boys are not sophisticated - involving split second timing and springing Joe Bang (Daniel Craig with a yellow crew cut) from jail. He is a master safe cracker although doesn't have to crack anything in the end, not even a joke.

The heist is like one of those parlour games where competitors invent the most audacious robbery and then have to parry questions from the other contenders. Logan Lucky is imaginative in one sense - it works on paper - but incredible in every other respect. Also, it's not exciting.

Tatum plays big'n'thick. Driver has the energy of treacle. Craig is so pleased not to have to put on his my-name-is-Bond face that he overeggs the pud. The script depends on the pieces fitting together at the right time in the right places, ignoring daft coincidence and ludicrous possibilities.

Is this the film that brought director Steven Soderbergh back from retirement? What was he thinking?

Talking of mysteries you could start right there.