Soderbergh directs superfun Southern heist comedy 'Logan Lucky'

One of the many joys in Steven Soderbergh's breakneck-speed, Red-State-seeded heist comedy “Logan Lucky” has to be Daniel Craig's overt nod to 007's muscled, white-haired nemesis Red Grant, Robert Shaw's Soviet assassin from the James Bond classic “From Russia With Love.”

With his stark white hair buzzed to the nubs and his biceps bulging with panoramic tattoos, Craig (soon to star in his fifth 007 outing) plays an imprisoned bank vault explosives expert appropriately named Joe Bang.

Armed with a charming West Virginia drawl, Joe Bang is no hick from the sticks. He possesses the mind of a chemistry professor who plies science to robbing bank vaults the way a painter plies color to a canvas.

That's another joy in this Southern-fried “Oceans 11” caper: The characters, initially appearing to be redneck stereotypes, reveal themselves to be much more than we expect.

Channing Tatum (reteaming with Soderbergh from “Magic Mike”) plays the unlikely criminal mastermind Jimmy Logan, who, in the opening scene, gets fired from his job operating heavy equipment.

He's been dealt a losing hand in the game of life, a victim of the Logan family curse to be a loser. His remarried ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) has custody of their daughter. He has no money or prospects.

Jimmy visits his bartender brother Clyde (Adam Driver, a master of deadpan, automated delivery), an Iraq War vet with sibling rivalry issues and an often-missing prosthetic arm that actually figures into the plot.

Jimmy tells Clyde he'll break the family curse by robbing the vault at the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the lucrative Coca-Cola 600 race on Memorial Day weekend.

“I know how they move the money,” he says. While working on the Speedway's renovation, he observed how massive amounts of cash travel through suction tubes under the huge complex.

Soderbergh smoothly glides us through this NASCAR world, emanating an old-fashioned Hal Needham vibe, but with greater character depth and extra IQ points.

Jimmy sets out to assemble his Mission: Impossible Bank Vault Heists task force: Craig's legendary Joe Bang, brother Clyde, plus two good-ol' bad boys (Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson) who will only assist Jimmy if he can give them a “moral” reason to help.

“Logan Lucky,” written by first-time scripter Rebecca Blunt, makes for a marvelous gift for moviegoers in mid-August, often referred to as the dog days of the summer season.

Blunt's accelerated, seems-to-be-careening-out-of-control-but-not-really screenplay includes a nasty, egomaniacal British racer (a virtually unrecognizable Seth MacFarlane, exploding with curls), a lying, bureaucratic prison warden (Dwight Yoakam superbly cast against type) and a late-arriving Hilary Swank as a stony FBI investigator who could have stepped right out of the old “Dragnet” TV series.

They all add up to an unpretentiously entertaining movie, the kind that proclaims in its trailers: “Introducing Daniel Craig as Joe Bang!”

Hey, we're introduced to a hilarious side of Craig we've never seen before. Doesn't that count?

“Logan Lucky”

★ ★ ★ ½

Starring: Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Katie Holmes, Riley Keough, Hilary Swank

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Other: A Bleeker Street release. Rated PG-13 for language. 119 minutes